Of Werewolves and Wanderers
by Meaghan McCormack
Summary: Chapter Five has been updated... Harry and Draco are attacked in the forest, Lupin and Arabella reconnect some old ties, and Sirius begins to hope...
1. Of Werewolves and Wanderers

1 ****

1.

Of Werewolves and Wanderers

Mrs. Figg lived at number twelve, Privet Drive. She was a very old woman who lived in a spotless house with her four cats. Mrs. Figg was so old that she had quite forgotten how old she really was. She guessed she was somewhere between the ages of ninety-five and one hundred and five, but she could never be quite sure. For such an old woman, she was remarkably healthy. She had outlived both her son and her daughter-in-law and her only living relation was her granddaughter, Arabella. Arabella's father, Mrs. Figg's son, and Mrs. Figg had never gotten on very well. Mrs. Figg was very practical and had a no-nonsense view on most things. She had never believed in fairy tales or magic, and had scoffed those who did. Her son, on the other hand, had a very relaxed view on life. It didn't help matters that he was a wizard. When Mrs. Figg first learned of this, she thought it was another of her son's jokes, strangely enough, it was very much the truth. After seven years spent studying at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, the finest wizarding school in all of England, Mrs. Figg's son had become a very powerful wizard, and Mrs. Figg had moved to the other side of the country. She never quite forgave her son for being a wizard, even though, as he had tried to explain countless times that he didn't really have a choice. 

Now, both her son and his wife were dead, and Arabella was a grownup practicing Wizardry as well. Mrs. Figg hadn't heard from her granddaughter in more than a year, until one evening when a large, tawny owl flew in though the window. Mrs. Figg, who had become, if not accepting, used to this method of delivering messages in the wizarding world, gingerly reached up and grabbed the letter from the beak of the owl, who, mission completed, soared once around the room and settled on the top of a chest of drawers. Slowly, Mrs. Figg opened the envelope and a thick piece of parchment fell to the floor. Reaching down, and unfolding it, she read;

Dear Grandma,

I know we have not really been on speaking terms, and we have not seen each other in many years, but I need to visit that part of the country to make some calls on some old friends. I was wondering if I might be able to stay with you for a week or two? Please send your reply with my owl. I will arrive on Tuesday, August 5th.

Thanks Very Much,

Arabella Figg

Mrs. Figg thought to herself. It would be nice to have some company, and she _hadn't_ seen her granddaughter in a long time, but all the same, what would the neighbors think if Arabella suddenly appeared in the street in her horrible black robes and holding a magic wand? Mrs. Figg thought a few more moments, and, decidedly, turned the parchment over and wrote;

__

Arabella,

You may stay with me for two weeks, but make sure you arrive in a normal fashion, in decent clothes. I will be expecting you on the 5th.

Mrs. Figg

Mrs. Figg smiled to herself. That seemed to get the point across, and after all, she really did want to see her granddaughter again. She stuffed the parchment back into the envelope and handed it to the owl, who grabbed it in his beak and flew, once again out the window. As she was watching the owl fly out the window, she suddenly remembered something odd she had seen down the street. The same snowy owl, night after night, seemed to fly right out of number Four's window, and would return in the morning. At first Mrs. Figg had assumed that the owl had nested in the rafters of number Four's attic, but then she realized that snowy owls were not even common to this part of the country. Was it possible that number Four held a wizard too? But that couldn't be. Mr. and Mrs. Dursley were even more practical that Mrs. Figg and if they had ever willingly taken part in anything strange or mysterious, Mrs. Figg would have eaten her cats. And she doubted that their horrible son Dudley had the sense to practice magic at all. "No," thought Mrs. Figg, "no one at number four could be a wizard. The snowy owl must just have been my imagination."

But Mrs. Figg was wrong, and there was indeed a snowy owl, who's name happened to be Hedwig, who right now was on her way back to Privet drive, ready to deliver a message to her owner, who was indeed a wizard. Mrs. Figg had forgotten that someone else lived at number four as well, and that someone's name was Harry Potter.

Harry Potter was a short, skinny 15-year-old boy, with a scar shaped like a bolt of lightning across his forehead, and at the moment, he was fast asleep. As Hedwig flew in through the window, she clucked distastefully at her sleeping owner, soared over to his bed, and pecked daintily at his nose. Harry woke with a start, his wand in his hand.

"Hedwig!" Harry whispered reproachfully. "It's 3 o'clock in the morning!"

Hedwig cooed gently and dropped a letter on Harry's head and flew out the window again. Harry stared at the retreating owl, and then, bent down to pick up the letter. As he looked at it, he recognized the handwriting of his godfather, Sirius Black. Eagerly, he tore the envelope open, and heard a loud cough. Harry's Uncle had woken up.

Harry heard a thundering down the hall and a moment later, his door burst open. Bright red and mustached, Vernon Dursley stared, horrified, around the room, his beady little eyes stopping on Harry, with a ripped piece of paper in one hand, and a wand in the other. 

"Ah ha!" roared Mr. Dursley. "Caught you red-handed! I knew it!" Mr. Dursley was yelling himself hoarse by now.

"I wasn't doing anything!" Harry screamed back.

"Oh don't you lie to me boy," growled Mr. Dursley, fuming. "I know what those wands are for!" A loud noise came from the door and both Harry and Mr. Dursley turned. They had been joined by Mrs. Dursley and Dudley, who was stifling a yawn. Dudley, whose attempted diet from the summer before had apparently failed, filled the entire doorway, not quite able to enter Harry's room, but eager to see the fun none the less. 

"What in heaven's name is going on?" a bonny face topped by a pink nightcap came into view over the massive Dudley. 

"I caught him red handed! This boy was about to do… About to do… He was holding his wand in his hand and he was about to do magic!" Both Mrs. Dursley and Dudley stared at Mr. Dursley in horror. Even Mr. Dursley seemed surprised at is own daring. 

"Dad said the 'M' word!" gapped Dudley, plainly horrified. Mr. Dursley bolted from the room, with Mrs. Dursley and Dudley close behind.

Harry sat down on his bed and sighed. He had lived with the Dursley for 10 horrible years. Then, only 4 years ago, he found out that he was a wizard, and he had escaped to Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, and since that day, he had only been force to spend his summers at number four Privet Drive. It was only when he had found out that he was a wizard, that he found the truth of why he had a scar on his forehead, and why he was an orphan living with his aunt and uncle. The scar was not, as the Dursleys had pretended for so long, the souvenir of a car crash that had killed his parents, but the mark of an evil curse. For his parents had been killed, not by an accident, but by the most evil wizard in over 100 years. This wizard's name was Voldemort, but so feared was he by the rest of the wizarding community, that he was known only as you-know-who. When Voldemort had finished Harry's mother and father, and tried to place the killing curse on Harry, it failed, and instead, rebounded on the owner. Voldemort, barely alive, had fled. 

But Voldemort had not vanished for good and only the year before, had Harry had another chilling encounter with Lord Voldemort himself. Harry had been forced to witness the murder of a fellow student and the rebirth of Voldemort. Only after another miraculous escape, was Harry able to realize that Voldemort's return to power endangered the entire world. With the help of Albus Dumbledore, who was know for being the only person Voldemort ever feared, some other teachers, and some other powerful witches and wizards, Harry began to plan for the future. 

Now, back with the Dursleys for the summer, Harry longed for fall when he would be returning to Hogwarts. He missed the dark castle with its moving, talking paintings, and walking coats of armor. He missed the classes and his teachers, and hallways full of ghosts. He missed fire lit rooms in the evening and exciting games of Quidditch, the wizard sport played on flying broomsticks high in the air. But most of all, he missed his best friends, Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger. He wished he might escape the horrible Dursleys and stay with Ron, as he had done the summer before, but Dumbledore had told both Harry and Mrs. Weasley that Harry was to stay with the Dursleys this summer, and Harry knew better that to disobey any rules that Dumbledore had set for him, for he trusted Dumbledore more than any other person alive. 

Harry, suddenly exhausted, flopped down on his bed and was asleep before his head hit the pillow, the letter in his hand forgotten.

~~~~~~~~~

Fifty miles away, in a small, tumbledown shack on the edge of a secluded wood, two men sat by the fire. They had obviously been in a heated argument.

"Remus Lupin, I don't care what you say, the boy is safer with me. Harry's aunt and uncle wouldn't give a second thought to the matter if Voldemort came right into their house and carried Harry off. By the way they act, they'd be happy to get rid of him!"

"But Sirius, I thought you understood! Dumbledore placed Harry under a charm that will keep him safe from Voldemort, as long as he is in his aunt and uncle's care. By taking Harry to live with you, no matter how good your intentions may be, you are putting him in even more danger."

"I swear," growled Sirius. "I swear, if those Dursleys do anything to Harry, they'll regret it for the rest of their lives!"

Remus stared at his greatest friend alive, and marveled at how much he had changed since he had escaped from Azkaban, the wizard prison, where he had been locked away for twelve years for a crime he did not commit. His godchild, Harry Potter, brought out a new, paternal side of Sirius that Remus had never seen before in his friend.

"Now don't do anything that will land you back in Azkaban. Remember, you haven't been cleared for that first crime yet," said Remus lightly.

Sirius growled again, and stood up. "At least Arabella is coming. We can always use another Auror around at times like these."

"Yes. It will be good to see Arabella again," Remus smiled for the first time all evening, remembering his childhood friend. "Old Arabella, she would never turn down a dare. Do you remember when…"

"Quiet!" Sirius hissed suddenly.

Both Remus and Sirius turned to face the door, their wands in their hands. There was a tentative knock on the door.

"Who's there?" asked Remus sharply.

"It's me! Come on Remus Lupin, let me in," A cheerful voice came through the door. Remus, grinning, threw open the door and, pulling the stranger inside, said, "Mundungus Fletcher, it's great to see you again!"

"And Sirius Black! Well if it isn't our escaped convict! This old werewolf running you down yet?" Mundungus Fletcher was positively beaming.

"Just stay away from him on the full moon," Sirius grinned back. It was easy to forget that Remus, their light, kind, and easygoing friend was a werewolf. 

Remus Lupin waved Mundungus to a chair, and then sat down himself. 

"Now, we're only waiting for Arabella, and then we can get some work done."

~~~~~~~

Arabella Figg was used to traveling by non-magical methods. He job forced her to do it all the time. "But really," she thought to herself, as she climbed onto the train, "Would it do so much harm to apparate into Grandma's house?"

Still, Arabella knew how her grandmother felt about magic, and she didn't want to upset her grandmother on her first meeting with her after 27 years.

"Ticket, please," a tall, lanky, and rather harassed looking young man tapped her on the shoulder, waking her from her thoughts. Hastily, she dug in her pocket and pulled out a crumpled piece of paper. The man snatched the ticket, examined it, put it in his pouch, and moved on.

Arabella smiled after the poor Muggle, the name wizards had given to all non-magic people, and wondered, as she did so often, how did they survive without magic? 

Her thoughts turned to the place she would be going after she reached her grandmother's house. At least she could apparate there. Her friends from school, Remus Lupin, and Sirius Black, had called her to join them in preparing for the rise of the dark lord's power. Could it really be true that he had regained his power again? She had spent most of her life fighting him and his death eaters, the name Voldemort's followers had given to themselves, and now, to be thrown back into her job after 12 years…

Arabella sighed inwardly, and decided not to think about it right now. She tried to get comfortable in her hard plastic seat, and suddenly, there was a horrible lurch and the sound of glass shattering.

****

~~~~~~~~~~~~

Harry awoke the next morning, and, remembering the events of the night before, braced himself as he walked down the stairs to breakfast. The Dursleys didn't even notice him. They were all staring at the TV screen, where the Newscaster was reporting the top story of the day;

"And a bit of tragedy to start our morning off," the newscaster had started in a cheery voice. "Early this morning, a train bound for Kings Cross Station from Aberdeen crashed, killing 12 of the passengers, and injuring almost 100 more. So far, experts have found no reason for the train to crash, as everything on board was working properly, and there is no evidence of any obstacle except for a whole lot of glass, which seemed to come from nowhere! Now Jim takes you live to the scene."

The picture changed from the bright newsroom to a dark wooded spot. Medical trucks and helicopters were valiantly trying to care for the injured passengers, but were having trouble due to the floods of newscasters and their crews. 

"Well Ted, looks like a pretty hectic scene here. Like you said, there is no evidence of any malfunction on board, and from the looks of it, the train crashed into a glass wall! Take a look at this mess. Now if anyone would like to explain the glass wall in the middle of the woods, please give us a call!" Jim chuckled, and continued, "We'll keep you posted with more information. Now back to you in London."

Mrs. Dursley stared intently at the screen which was now showing lists of those injured in the crash, who were now being flown to the London Hospital.

"Vernon, do we know an Arabella Figg? That name sounds very familiar."

"I don't think so, dear," Mr. Dursley replied.

Harry would have normally suspected that Mrs. Dursley just wanted an excuse to call and get more information, so she would have more to gossip about, but strangely enough, Harry was almost sure he had heard that name somewhere before as well.

"I remember!" Mrs. Durlseys' shrill voice broke into Harry's thoughts. "That must be Mrs. Figg's granddaughter! The one who was coming to visit!" Mrs. Dursley made it her business to poke and pry until she had found out everything possible about her neighbor's private lives.

Harry had heard enough. He knew that was not where he had heard the name before, so he grabbed a piece of bacon and headed back up the stairs to think. 

Harry had been doing a lot of thinking this summer. He was constantly being woken up by nightmares of his last encounter with Voldemort. He wished he could talk about it with his godfather Sirius, but he was now staying with Harry's old teacher, Professor Lupin. They would be reaching friends from all over the country to come and help with preparations for hard times ahead. As most of the wizarding world refused to believe that Voldemort had returned to power, they would need all the support they could get. Sirius was probably talking to his old school friends right now.

Suddenly, it hit him. He knew where he had heard the name Arabella Figg before, and it wasn't from old Mrs. Figg down the street. The year before, when Harry was waiting in the infirmary after his near death encounter with Voldemort, Professor Dumbledore was talking to Sirius about who should be immediately notified. Even though he had been half-asleep at the time, he heard Dumbledore's voice as clearly as if he was speaking now.

"Sirius, I need you to set off at once. You are to alert Remus Lupin, Arabella Figg, Mungundus Fletcher- the old crowd."

Harry had a sudden remembrance of old Mrs. Figg, her cabbage-smelling living room, her cats, and most of all, her stubborn character, and pitied the poor witch or wizard who had to grow up with her. 

"Then again," he thought to himself, "she's much better than the Dursleys." 

Just then, Hedwig flew in through the open window. Harry reached up to pat her, when he suddenly remembered that he had not read Sirius' letter from the night before. Thanking Hedwig, who affectionately nipped Harry's ear and flew over to her cage for a nap, Harry placed the new letter on the bed, to read later, and picked up Sirius' letter from the floor where it had dropped the night before. 

Dear Harry,

How are you? Are the Dursleys treating you all right? Remember that you can always write to me, and I'll come set them straight. I know you had a pretty rough year last year, but I've made Dumbledore promise no more surprises.

Harry grinned to himself. No surprises at Hogwarts? Sirius must be kidding. Still smiling, Harry turned back to the letter.

__

I am staying with Remus Lupin, who sends his regards. We will be very busy for the next few months, so I doubt I will be able to see you until September. I'll write you a longer letter soon, but we have work to do. Take care, and don't worry.

Love,

Sirius

Harry wondered if Sirius really knew how worried Harry really was. The rise of the Voldemort put many of his friends in danger. Ron and his brothers and parents, his teachers, Sirius, Lupin, and hundreds more. Witches and wizards all over the country lived in constant fear of his return. Now, during the summer holidays, under the poor protection of the Dursleys, Harry knew he had every right to be just as afraid.

****

~~~~~~~

Lucius Malfoy slammed his fist down on the hard oak table in the living room of his manor, winced, and rubbed his hand ruefully. He turned to the fireplace in the stone wall and shouted, "I want her _dead_, not in a hospital! She's a witch, Goyle, what doesn't kill her outright most likely won't kill her at all."

"But, sir," a floating head in the fireplace replied. "I injured her pretty badly, and twelve muggles died…"

Mr. Malfoy cut him off. "I don't care about muggles!" He shouted again. "And I don't care how badly you hurt her! All you've done is get the attention of all of England." He turned away from the fireplace. Goyle's head, realizing the conversation was over, vanished with a pop. Mr. Malfoy sighed an put his head in his hands. What he wanted done, he would have to do himself. His job was to put Arabella Figg six feet under, and he wasn't going to stop until she was dead. The last meeting of the death eaters had taken place at the Malfoy mansion and the orders had been clear. 

"Do not allow the Aurors who believe in the Dark Lord's return to unite."

"Narcissa!"

"Yes, dear?" A voice answered from the kitchen in the next room.

"I'm leaving. I have some business. I don't want anyone to enter this house until I get back. Do you understand?"

"Perfectly," Lucius' wife replied icily. "Lucius, you just got home. You need to spend some time with your family!"

"Ha! Family. Don't talk to me about family. The Dark Lord and the death eaters are the only family we need and he won't let you forget it, even if you are my wife." And with that, Lucius storm from the room.

Narcissa busied herself with a complex cheese soufflé dish that no one would be home to eat and turned he back to the door.

"Don't know how you can stand him," Mina, the young ghost maid said, popping out of the wall she had been eavesdropping from. "If it were me, I would have left him ages ago."

"Thanks for the compassion, Mina," Narcissa looked much older than her thirty-seven years. 

"Why do you stay? Underneath the cold eyes and blonde hair, there is nothing there!"

"For Draco. I couldn't leave my only child. You know what would happen to the poor boy if I left, he'd be just as bad as his father in no time."

~~~~~~~~~~~~

Mrs. Figg was quite an obstinate woman when she wanted to be. She was also obstinate when she had had no sleep the night before and her granddaughter was in critical care. 

"I don't care what your bloody rules are! I want to see my granddaughter!" She stormed through the hospital halls scowling at anyone who seemed to be looking happy. She had been pacing, as well as she could with her cane, though the hospital waiting room for nearly three hours and had finally reached the end of her rope.

"I demand that you let me in to see my granddaughter this instant!" She said loudly to the most venerable and youngest looking doctor on the floor.

"I'm sorry, Madam," he stammered, clearly no used to dealing with angry old ladies swinging canes around. "But I'm afraid we can't…"

"You very well can! I have been waiting here for hours and I am not going to wait any longer."

The young doctor opened his mouth to speak again but Mrs. Figg raised her cane menacingly and he seemed to think better of it.

"If I let you in for ten minutes, will you leave?" he asked resignedly.

"Maybe I will," she answered very coldly.

The doctor sighed and said, "Follow me." He led her into a room filled with white. White walls reflected the bright white lights and the room was filled with doctors in white coats. Mrs. Figg found herself wishing she'd brought sunglasses. Then she caught sight of Arabella lying on the bed in the center of the room. The walked over to her granddaughter ignoring the other doctor's stares. One of them seemed about to come over and ask her just what she thought she was doing, but the young man who'd led her in stopped him. The young woman lying in the bed looked just as Mrs. Figg remembered even the last time she had seen her, Arabella had been 12 years old at the time. She was tall with long brown hair and a face lined from smiling. Her eyes were shut, but Mrs. Figg remembered them to be a deep blue mixed with gray, like the sea.

"Arabella," Mrs. Figg spoke quietly to the unmoving figure. Suddenly her granddaughter's eyes snapped open and her face broke into a smile.

"Grandma! I figured you get in."

"What's that supposed to mean? Didn't you parents teach you…" Arabella cut her grandmother off and said, "Grandma, do the doctors have my clothes? My jacket?"

Mrs. Figg turned and moved away from the bed. "She wants her jacket," she said, speaking to what looked like the man in charge. He stared at her strangely for a moment and his eyes flickered back to Arabella in the bed, who remained unmoving except for her eyes. He then walked over to one of the white cabinets and pulled out a neatly folded fleece jacket and handed it to Mrs. Figg. She had a fairly good idea of what her granddaughter would want but instead of searching though Arabella's jacket, she brought it over to her. 

"In the inside pocket on the left, Grandma." Mrs. Figg reached into the jacket and pulled out the long skinny wand. Arabella lifted her arm and the look of concentration on her face made it seem a tremendous effort. She took the wand and Mrs. Figg, still holding the jacket, stepped back. There was a blinding flash of light and several of the doctors shouted. When the lights disappeared, Arabella stood, fully dressed and perfectly healthy by the bed. She then whispered a few words and a brilliant stream of light issued from the end of the wand directly at the doctors who jumped as if receiving an electric shock. Their eyes then went vacant and Mrs. Figg and her granddaughter walked side by side out of the hospital without saying a word.

~~~~~~~~

A large black dog ran through the night with a newspaper held fast in his mouth. Branches of bushes and trees reached out but the dog raced on. After he had been running for nearly half an hour, he paused and sniffed the wind, abruptly changed direction and started running again. Finally, he reached the tumbledown shack at the edge of the wood and scratched on the door. 

"Yes?" came Remus Lupin's voice from inside. The dog dropped the paper and made a whining sound that Lupin had never heard before from an animal or man. The door opened in an instant and standing on the doorstep was Sirius Black. 

"Ah, you're finally back," Lupin said, looking relieved. He suddenly caught the look on Black's face and his heart stopped. "Oh my god," he whispered, "What happened to Arabella?"


	2. Protectors Unite

2 ****

2.

Protectors Unite

"Well, as far as we know, she's not dead." Black started but was cut off by a slightly hysterical Mundungus Fletcher who had only heard part of Lupin and Black's conversation.

"Who's dead? Is Arabella dead? What happened?" he stammered with a half empty bottle of Ogden's Old Firewiskey in one hand and a wand, which was emitting amber colored sparks, in the other. 

"No one is dead. At least, we're fairly certain that no one is dead," Black said sharply. "Really, Moony," he said to Lupin, using his school nickname, "I didn't even know you kept that stuff in the house and I would have thought you'd have enough sense not to let Fletcher drink at a time like this!" Mundungus shorted haughtily at him and retreated to his armchair in the corner. "And you'd have enough sense to save some for me," Black added in an undertone to Lupin. 

Lupin offered a wry smile and said, "Well, you still haven't told me what happened."

In answer, Black picked up the paper that was still sitting on the doorstep and handed it to Lupin. He looked down at the headlines and read: 

****

Train Crash Kills 12; Injures More

A train traveling from London to Aberdeen crashed last night killing 12 passengers and injuring hundreds more. The injured were rushed to the London Hospital early this morning.

What followed was an article with the full story, including the description of the mysterious glass wall, which so far, no one had been able to explain.

"And Arabella was on the train," Lupin said. It wasn't a question.

"She was," Black answered anyway and the continued. "But she wasn't killed. She was checked into London Hospital. I called them this evening and told them I was her cousin. They told me that she had been in critical care until this afternoon, but she is now no longer with them."

"Well where is she?"

"They couldn't answer. I'm guessing they had had some kind of memory charm placed on them because they couldn't answer any more questions."

"So you think that they…" Lupin started, but his voice trailed off.

"I don't know, Moony," Black spoke dejectedly. "I don't know." The two of them stared out the open door to the half moon and stars in the black sky and were silent for a moment. The Black turned to Lupin and asked, "Do you think there's anymore Firewhisky left, or did Fletcher drink it all?"

~~~~~~~~~~

Harry Potter didn't consider himself nosy. In fact, compared to his Aunt Petunia, he had to be positively indifferent, yet he couldn't help but notice that Mrs. Figg had been gone all morning and when a taxi stopped in front of her house, he moved to the living room so he could have a better view of who got out of the car. He watched as first Mrs. Figg's cane, followed by a quite ornery looking old woman came out of the car and then he saw Arabella. If he hadn't know that she was a witch, he never would have guessed. She was dressed flawlessly in muggle clothes. He jeans looked just used, but not old and the collar of a yellow Polo shirt could be seen over the top of her blue fleece jacket. She had long wavy brown hair that had been pulled back in a loose ponytail and she looked like someone who would say a pleasant hello if you passed her on the street. Harry just stared. She looked about the same age as Sirius and Lupin and he could hardly believe that this kindly looking young lady could be an Auror, one who devoted her life to using whatever powers she could to defeat dark magic. 

Quite suddenly, as though sensing his stare, Arabella Figg looked directly at him. For a moment she looked quite surprised, but then her face broke into a dazzling smile. Harry quickly turned away, but somehow that smile couldn't help making him feel reassured. 

At number 12, as soon as Arabella had placed her bags upstairs in the spare room, she rushed downstairs to confront her grandmother.

"You never told me Harry Potter lived on this street!" she began excitedly.

"You never asked," Mrs. Figg replied. "And I had forgotten he even lived there. He only stays there in the summer." She paused for a moment and then snapped, "How do you know Harry Potter anyway?"

"Never mind that! Where is he the rest of the year?" Arabella rushed on.

"The Dursleys, his Aunt and Uncle who take care of him," Mrs. Figg began. "They say he goes to St. Brutus's Secure Centre for Incurably Criminal Boys, but I don't believe a word of it. It's their other son who should be sent to…"

"Of course he doesn't go to St. Whatsit's Centre!" Arabella nearly shouted. "He goes to Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry! Harry Potter is one of the most famous wizards of all time and he's why I'm here in the first place!"

Mrs. Figg looked strangely at her granddaughter for a moment and then grinned a slightly toothless grin. Then she began to chortle, then laugh. "The wizard at number four," she choked. "I should have known."

Back at number four, Harry had raced up the stairs to send a letter to Sirius. He knew that his godfather probably already knew that Arabella was staying four doors down from him, but he wanted to write to him anyway. The Dursleys had taken Dudley out to a football game and left Harry with strict orders not to leave the house or else, as his uncle Vernon put it, "he would be locked under the stair and would never see his precious school again."

"Its not as if I have anywhere to go," Harry thought to himself, as he walked into his room. He said hello to Hedwig, who was dozing in her cage and sat down with a quill and parchment to write to his godfather.

_Dear Sirius,_

Hello. I received your letter last night. Hedwig woke me up at three in the morning to give it to me. I woke the Dursleys up and they came in and yelled at me, but had forgotten the whole thing by morning. Did you hear about the train crash? Arabella Figg, who you were going to meet up with was on the train. Her grandmother Mrs. Figg who lived four doors down from me picked her up from the hospital this afternoon and she's staying with her now, but I'll be you already knew that. It's very strange to think that there's another wizard on the street. I hope I'll see you soon. 

Love,

Harry

Harry stuffed the parchment in a envelope and for a moment debated weather or not to wake Hedwig now or later. He decided on now as she hadn't let him sleep the night before and shook her cage gently. She opened one beady eye and made a low clucking noise that made it clear that she was rather put off at being woken from her nap. She took the letter however and soared though the open window. Harry watched after her for a long time, even after she had disappeared from sight.

~~~~~~~~~

Narcissa was really quite amazed at the mess the small gathering of Death Eaters that Lucius had invited for a dinner meeting had created. He had returned late in the afternoon after his stormy exit that morning and his first words as he entered the Malfoy Manor were "Narcissa! People…dinner…nap," and had hurried upstairs not to reappear until that evening, leaving his wife to decode his cryptic instructions. As she wiped down the large wooden table and picked up the plates left by Lucius, Nott, Crabbe, Goyle and McNair, she eavesdropped on the conversation the Death Eaters were having in the next room.

"While Goyle's blunder put us a step back this morning," she heard Lucius say coldly and a gulp, which could have only come from Golye. "Nott's actions this afternoon have most definitely made up for it." Narcissa stopped moving and stained her ears to hear more.

"It was nothing Malfoy," Nott replied calmly. "A simple replacing spell that only applies to animals around the perimeter." Narcissa had no idea what he was talking about, and nor, apparently, did the others.

"I can see from the blank looks on your faces that you have no clue what Nott is talking about," Lucius broke in coldly. "Allow me to clarify for you imbeciles. This afternoon Nott had the inspired plan of placing a replacing charm around the Ministry of Magic." He paused for a moment and that said, irritated, "A replacing charm! It moves what ever touches it to a defined location! Nott has set up a replacing charm around the Ministry of Magic that only affects animals! All owls that are sent to the Ministry will end up here!" 

In the other room, Narcissa dropped the pile of dishes she was holding, but fortunately, no one noticed as McNair, Crabbe and Golye were clapping loudly. As she bent down to pick up the dishes they started talking again, but this time, she didn't wait to hear more and as soon as she had gathered all the plates, she hurriedly walked away trying to decide what she should do. 

Narcissa had been a year below Lucius at Hogwarts and had been in the Ravenclaw house. Growing up, Lucius had always been kind enough to her. True, he did tend to bully students who were younger, smaller, dumber, uglier, smarter, in a different house, or anyone else for that matter, but he had never done anything to her that caused her to dislike him at all, and he had been so rich and handsome. Three years after she graduated, she instantly agreed when he asked for her hand in marriage.

But after being married to him, she began to see a lot more of his nastier side, the side which tortured muggles and devoted his life to Dark Arts. She would have left him, too, except for Draco, their son. She would do whatever it took to try and keep Draco from growing up to be like his father.

"Hey, mum." A voice suddenly interrupted her troubled thoughts and Draco Malfoy swaggered into the room. "Did you need some help with the dishes?"

"Oh, no thanks dear, I was just finishing up."

"Good," he drawled. "May I have fifty galleons, then?"

"Draco!" she said, astounded.

"I'm just kidding, mum," he said dejectedly, sounding rather like he wasn't.

"Draco, you got an owl today. Did you know that you're a Prefect this year? Why didn't you tell me! I'm so proud," Narcissa said quickly hoping desperately that this was what a normal mother would say to a normal child, not a child who grew up surrounded by Dark Arts.

"I figured I would be. Do I get any special privileges?" He asked.

"Well, the letter didn't exactly say, but they want all the Prefects and the Head Boy and Girl to arrive at Hogwarts a week early for lectures and…" Narcissa paused not quite sure what they could want the students for a week earlier. "Other stuff," she ended lamely.

"Right, I'll mark that on my calendar then," Draco replied and grabbed a licorice wand from the jar on the counter and swaggered back towards the stairs. Narcissa sighed and began to put away the dishes.

~~~~~~~~~

When Sirius saw Hedwig flying out of the woods towards him, he smiled for the first time since he had returned to the shack. He petted Hedwig who cooed and dropped Harry's letter in his hand. Sirius pulled the parchment out of the envelope and began to read. 

"Damn Dursleys," he muttered to himself and his eyes traveled farther down the page suddenly he gasped and sank into the chair he stood next to. 

"Moony!" he shouted. "Fletcher! Arabella's OK! She's with Harry!"

Lupin and Mundungus raced down the stairs, each with equal looks of bewilderment written all over their faces.

"With Harry?" Lupin asked, clearly questioning the sanity of his old friend as well as the information. "What on earth is she doing with Harry?"

"Well, she's not really with Harry, but with her Grandmother, on Harry's street."

"Well by all the small world coincidences, doesn't that just beat them all!" Mundungus Fletcher voiced what they all were thinking.

"We should write to her immediately," Lupin started, then paused and said, "Wait, who knows weather this Grandmother of hers is used to owl mail. If we send a letter to Harry, do you think he can get it to her?" Lupin looked quite pale, but he also looked very relieved.

"Good idea," Mundungus replied. "We should just have Harry let her know we're all here and we're waiting for her, right?"

"Perfect," Sirius said happily. "I'll write to Harry right away."

Five minutes later, a rather bedraggled Hedwig who had been looking forward to a long rest was flying off again with a letter for Harry clutched in her beak.

~~~~~~~~~~

Harry himself was in his bed reading his charms homework when Hedwig flew in the window. Harry read the letter from Sirius and was surprised to find that he hadn't known about Arabella. Sirius, however had entrusted Harry to pass on a message, so he casually meandered down to the kitchen where the Dursleys were watching TV and eating desert. Harry sat down at the table and stared intently at the TV. He actually had no idea what was going on in the programe, but was planning the best thing to say.

"You know I saw Mrs. Figg come home with her granddaughter this afternoon," said Harry slowly.

"And why should we care about bloody Mrs. Figg's granddaughter?" Mr. Dursley asked sharply.

"Oh, I don't know. I just thought it would be nice if we stopped by and said hello. I've never met anyone who's been in a train crash," Harry said. He could practically see the wheels in Mrs. Dursleys head turning. She'd never met a train crash victim either. 

"I don't see what…" Mr. Dursley started, but Aunt Petunia broke in. 

"Boy has a point," she said. "It'd be quite interesting to hear her side of the story, I'm sure."

Harry smiled and settled back. He knew the Dursleys would take him along. He knew Mrs. Figg better than any of them because she used to take care of him when the Dursleys left him behind on family excursions before he went to Hogwarts. He watched as Mrs. Dursley scrambled to find some flowers and a 'feel better' card. And then, after pulling Dudley away from the TV, Harry and the Dursleys headed down the street to number 12. 

They rang the doorbell and then had to knock twice before anyone answered the door. Mrs. Figg, looking harassed stepped out and said in a quite unfriendly tone, "What do you want?"

"These are for your darling granddaughter," Mrs. Dursley simpered, holding out the flowers. 

"For me?" Arabella asked elbowing her way past her grandmother and winking at Harry, who grinned back. "Why you shouldn't have! As you can see, I'm doing quite well. Won't you come in?"

This was just the invitation Aunt Petunia had been waiting for and she rushed past both Arabella and Mrs. Figg and made herself comfortable on the couch. Mrs. Figg looked daggers at her granddaughter.

"Now why did you have to do that? Once you get these people in, you never get them out," Mrs. Figg whispered.

In reply, Arabella looked down at Harry, you was still standing on the doormat and said with a smile, "Hello dear, my name is Arabella Figg. I don't believe we've been introduced."

"Harry Potter," Harry replied, sticking out his hand.

"It's a pleasure, a real pleasure," Arabella laughed and turned to join the others in the living room.

Several cups of coffee and many retellings of Arabella's story later, the Dursleys had overstayed their welcome and Mrs. Figg was giving her granddaughter a look that quite plainly said, "You got them in, and you get the out. Now."

Arabella caught her grandmother's eye and nodded. She then turned to Harry and said, "Harry Potter, I've heard so much about you."

The Dursleys stared, alarmed at this sudden and unexpected comment.

"Heard about him?" Uncle Vernon stammered. "How have you heard about him? You must be mistaken…" Arabella cut him off.

"Oh, no, I'm quite sure it's him. He's really quite famous, you know. Everyone in the wizarding world knows his name." She smiled sweetly at the horrorstruck expression on the Dursley's faces. "How are you enjoying school, Harry?" she asked.

"Oh, its fantastic," he said, biting his tongue to keep from breaking out laughing at the looks on the Dursley's faces.

"I remember when I was at Hogwarts…" Arabella started, but this was enough for the Dursleys. As one person, they bolted from the room, and then Arabella and Harry really did burst out laughing.

"Thank you for that tasteless display of humor," Mrs. Figg said stiffly. Harry and Arabella stopped laughing abruptly. "That must have been about the most effective way of getting rid of the Dursleys I have ever seen." Mrs. Figg smiled as Harry and Arabella started laughing again. 

"So, Harry," said Arabella, gasping for breath. "What did you want to tell me?"

"How did you know I wanted to tell you something?" Harry asked.

"Instinct," Arabella replied seriously, tapping her head. Then she smiled and said, "And I seriously doubt that the Dursleys would think up bringing me flowers and a card all by themselves."

"When I saw you, I sent a letter to Sirius, and just this evening I got a reply," Harry explained. "He and Lupin, and Mundungus Fletcher, they all are waiting for you. They thought you were dead," Arabella smiled at that. "And they need you to come as soon as possible."

"I'll apparate there tonight. And now, Harry, is there anything that I can tell Sirius for you?" 

"Not really, just I wish I could come and stay with him." Arabella looked at him kindly and nodded. 

"I'll see what I can do," she said. "Now, I need to get ready to leave. Can you go back and stay with those…Durselys? Or will that be a problem?"

"Nah, I can always get back in. They're too afraid that Sirius will come and turn them into cockroaches if they do anything too awful to me."

"That's alright them," Arabella replied, looking slightly put out by the Dursley's reactions. "I'm sure I'll be seeing you again soon Harry. Goodnight."

Harry got up and thanked Mrs. Figg for the nice evening and shook hands with Arabella. He then left number twelve and began to walk back up the street to the Dursleys.

Twenty minutes later, Arabella had gathered up a small suitcase of some clothes, and any materials she thought might be useful later. She walked downstairs to talk to her grandmother, but when she walked into the living room, she found Mrs. Figg fast asleep on the couch. Instead of waking her, she went into the kitchen and grabbed a piece of paper and a pen and scribbled a quick note to her grandmother.

_Dear Grandma,_

I'm sure you heard me tell Harry this evening that I would leave as soon

as possible, and so I'm off. If you need to contact me for any reason, talk to Harry. His owl can find me. Thanks for your hospitality and I should be back soon.

Love,

Arabella

She took the letter and placed it on the table in the living room where Mrs. Figg would be sure to see it when she woke up. She then picked up her suitcase and her wand and whispered a few well-chosen words and she disappeared.

~~~~~~~~

Lucius Malfoy had personally taken up the Arabella Figg case. Seeing as Golye had botched it up the first time, he would do anything in his power to make sure that they made up for lost ground. He had spent much of the evening after the Death Eaters had left at the London Hospital interrogating the muggle doctors. After breaking a few weak memory charms, he had found out all he had wanted to know. He was now up in his study pouring over maps of Surrey, in particular, the tiny town of Little Whinging. 

Lucius smirked inwardly and picked up his wand.

"Incendio!" he shouted into the fireplace and flames leapt up. He then picked up a pinch of green powder from a ornately carved bowl on the mantle and tossed it into the roaring flames which instantly turned green as well. 

"Golye!" Lucius added sharply.

"Yessir?" Golye's head replied from the fireplace.

"I would just like you to know that your little blunder has been repaired," Lucius spoke as though to one for whom he was doing an incredible favor.

"Yessir! Thank you sir!" Golye said quickly.

"Are you even going to ask what I found out?" Lucius asked sounding put out and a touch disappointed.

"Of course! Um…" Golye paused and with a look of deep concentration on his face asked, "What did you find out?"

Lucius sighed and said, "She is no longer in the hospital."

At least this comment registered a look of mild surprise on Golye's face. "Where is she then?"

"She is staying with her grandmother in Surrey," said Lucius, satisfied that Golye had asked at least one intelligent question.

"Then there's not really anything we can do about her then," said Goyle dejectedly. 

"Of course there is you dolt!" Lucius shouted.

"But if she's with her grandmother…" Golye started.

"You idiot, her grandmother is a _muggle_. And I know exactly where she lives."

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Back at the shack where Lupin, Black and Fletcher were waiting for Arabella, another owl was flying out of the woods.

"This must be our night for owls," Sirius said. "We've had more tonight that than…" Mundungus cut him off.

"Hey, that's Artimis. My owl. I sent her with a letter of warning to the Ministry yesterday. I offered our help if the need arose."

"That's great," Lupin said. "Except for the fact that Fudge has already decided… Hey, what's wrong with your owl?"

Artimis the owl was flying slower and slower. Her wings flapped listlessly and her eyes seemed to be closed. She slowly flew into the shack and collapsed on the table. 

"My god!" Black exclaimed. "She's dead." Fletcher offered a stream of oaths that the other two had never heard before and Lupin bent to examine the body of the owl. Slowly he prodded the stiff body with his wand and then muttered something and a blue light shot out of his wand. The owl disintegrated rapidly before their eyes leaving only the letter she had been carrying. 

"I don't believe it," Lupin said slowly. 

"What is it?" Sirius asked in concern.

"This owl has been dead for hours. Maybe even since she arrived at the ministry."

"That's impossible!" Mundungus said quickly.

"Oh no, not for one skilled in dark arts, it is quite easy to animate the dead," Lupin answered.

"But the letter?" Black asked staring apprehensively at the unmarked envelope on the table.

"Who knows what kind of charms are hidden in that envelope," Lupin said in a worried tone.

"Well," said Fletcher. "There's only one way to find out."

Arabella Figg appeared right outside the door of Lupin's shack and smiled. She couldn't wait to see her old friends. She hurried up and knocked on the door and took a step backward right as the entire shack blew up.


	3. Green Skies

Green Skies ****

3.

Green Skies

Arabella screamed and leapt away from the explosion. She dropped and covered her neck with her arms as flaming debris rained down. For almost five full minutes she stayed, crouched on the ground. Finally, she stood slowly up and looked upon the rubble that littered the small clearing in the woods. Then, gazing at the settling dust, she was suddenly hit with the fact that the house she had just seen explode held in it her three best friends alive. She sank to her knees again, her eyes filling with tears. She could almost hear their voices now.

"I told you people hid charms in envelopes," Lupin's voice seemed to echo.

"But you insisted that we open it," Black added hollowly.

"Fine, blame it all on me," Mundungus said dryly.

Arabella wondered if she were going crazy. The voices sounded so real, but the conversation they were having seemed like something so juvenile that they might have had the same argument when they had been students at Hogwarts. 

"I could have sworn I heard somebody scream," Fletcher added.

"I thought so too but unless…" Lupin's voice suddenly stopped and Arabella felt a hand on her shoulder.

"Arabella!" Black yelled at the top of his voice.

"What on earth are you doing? You weren't crying were you?" Mundungus put in just as if he were taunting her in the Gryffindor common room as he had done so often all those years ago. 

Arabella leapt up and hugged each of them in turn as hard as she could and said, "You'd cry too if you thought that all of your friends had just blown up in one go!"

"Us? Blow up? Well, I suppose however we go, we'll certainly go out with a bang, but we thought we'd stick around for a while yet," Black said with a grin.

"You scared me to death!" Arabella frowned at him. "Anyway, how on earth did you manage to get out of the house?"

Remus then told Arabella the whole story about Mundungus's owl and how it came back dead with an unmarked letter. "Mundungus decided then that we had to find out what was inside the letter, so we opened a window and left the house and used an opening charm to open it from outside."

"But Remus, your house! Where are we going to go now?" Arabella asked.

The three men then looked quite sheepish and looked quickly at each other. There was an awkward silence.

"Oh no," Arabella started. "There is no way my grandmother is going to let three wizards stay in her house for even a day, let alone the amount of time we'll need to…" but Lupin cut her off.

"We don't mean to intrude, but we have _nowhere_ else to go. If we could meet somewhere else, we would."

"Well…" Arabella started.

"And your grandmother will love us," Black teased. "We can help her cook and clean the house and magic off all the neighbors she doesn't like…"

"You're not helping," Fletcher glared at him. Black just laughed. He was obviously very relieved that Arabella had finally arrived, as were they all.

"Can't you…" Arabella tried again.

"No!" all three of her friends said at once.

"I suppose that…" Arabella said reluctantly.

"Thank you, Arabella," Lupin said. "I can conjure a few tents and we can stay here tonight, but in the morning we'll have to be moving on."

"You know," said Black thoughtfully. "This whole thing with the letter might have had some benefit. Moony, do those letter charms ever have tracking devices? So that the sender can know when they go off?"

Lupin looked up from the tents he had begun to conjure with his wand and said in surprise, "Why, yes, they usually do."

"Then whoever sent that letter probably thinks we're little more than a pile of dust right now and might leave us alone long enough for us to get something done."

"Yeah, only problem is, in a time like this, I doubt the sender of that letter is the only one looking for us," said Arabella. "Now, if you don't mind," she continued, grabbing her bag and walking towards the finished tent, "I've had a very long day and I'm going to bed."

~~~~~~~~~

Harry had returned to number four directly after leaving Mrs. Figg's house. He suddenly had a pounding headache and wanted to get to bed. When he got to the Dursley's house, he found the car gone so he let himself in with the key under the mat and went up to his room. He opened the door and the first thing he was a large barn owl sitting on the post of his bed. It held in its beak a letter bearing the Hogwarts Crest. He rushed up to the owl and took the letter quickly. Tearing it open and pulling out the parchment, he read;

_Mr. H. Potter,_

We are pleased to inform you that you have been selected to be a prefect for the Gryffindor House. You are expected to be a role model and guide to younger students and be an example for them to follow. This year we are requiring all prefects and the head boy and girl to arrive at Hogwarts exactly one week early. We will be expecting you on August 24th and the Hogwarts Express will be waiting at Kings Cross Station at 8:00AM. Please be prompt.

Sincerely,

Minerva McGonagall

"The 24th?" thought Harry to himself. "That's tomorrow! Give me a bit of notice don't they?"

Also enclosed in the envelope was a list with the schoolbooks he would need that year and a silver shiny badge with a large letter "P" on it. Harry grinned to himself. He remembered his first year of Hogwarts. Alone and quite terrified, one of the first things he saw when he stepped onto the magical platform 9 ¾ at Kings Cross Station, was Ron's big brother Percy who with his chest thrust forward and the very same badge. He hurried to write letters to Ron and Hermione. He explained to Ron that he would be unable to be on the Hogwarts Express on September 1st and he asked Hermione if she had been chosen as a prefect as well. He sealed the two envelopes and handed them to Hedwig who soared, side by side with the Hogwarts barn owl, out of the window. Harry then flopped down on his bed, quite exhausted and fell immediately asleep. 

Perhaps if Harry had known the dream he was going to have, he would have tried to keep himself awake. Shortly after he had fallen asleep, then he began to toss and turn. Then he began to dream.

__

Harry walked down a familiar hallway. He couldn't quite put a finger on where he was, but he knew he had been there recently. He was also invisible, though how he knew, he had no idea. Down the hallway his feet took him, one step after another until he reached a door. He reached for the knob and as he grabbed it, he somehow realized that if he had been flesh and blood, the handle would have been hot and burned his skin. He opened the door and walked into the room. He heard a high, cold laugh and a meow of a cat and saw that the room was in flames. But they were not ordinary flames, they were bright green. The green tongues of fire licked the walls and the ceilings but seemed to be centered at the large bed in the room. Suddenly the meowing stopped and the cold laugh grew in pitch then was silent. The heat intensified and Harry suddenly began to feel it. It felt as if he was on fire himself…

Harry jolted awake, and his scar burned as if on fire. He was bathed in a cold sweat as if the fire had been real. He gasped for breath and for one terrible moment, believed that his head would be torn apart by the pain in his scar. Then, as if it had never happened, the pain was gone. Harry shuddered and stood up from the bed. He walked over to the window and pushed it open. The last time he had woken with his scar hurting, it had been because Voldemort had just killed someone. Could it have happened again? Harry stuck his head out the window to let the cold night air clear his head, and saw a horrible sight. Down the street, directly over number 12 Privet Drive, a green smoke lingered in the air. It made the shape of a skull with a snake protruding from the gaping hole that was the mouth.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Narcissa was once again entertaining a host of Death Eaters at the manor, but this time, it was a much larger crowd. Dozens of Voldemort's supporters who had evaded prison milled around wearing large hooded black robes and eating off plates of appetizers. Lucius and his cronies, ten men and two women, who made up Voldemort's inner group were removed from the crowd in a secret room located under the drawing room floor. Narcissa wouldn't have normally been allowed to join them, but as the house elf was gone, and the ghosts didn't make good waiters as they had trouble carrying solid objects, Narcissa had offered to serve them for the night. She had also wanted to pick up as much information as possible. 

"Thank you, Narcissa," Camilla Lestrange said placidly as Narcissa poured her a glass of wine. "My that is a lovely dress you're wearing. It must have cost a fourtune!"

"I wouldn't know. Lucius bought it for me," Narcissa replied coldly. Mrs. Lestrange and Narcissa had known each other at Hogwarts and had vehemently disliked each other. They had been quite glad to see the other one leave. Little did they know that they would be seeing a whole lot more of each other. 

"Well of course, isn't that sweet," said Camilla, her voice dripping with sarcasm. "Now Narcissa, dear, why aren't you taking a more active role in out circle, like your husband and I?" Her voice held a hint of a challenge, almost as if questioning her loyalty.

"Well, Camilla, I suppose it suits some people, but I prefer to stay out of Azkaban when ever possible," Narcissa replied with a hint of a smile. It was clear she had touched a nerve. The Lestranges had spent most of the past fifteen years in the wizard prison, Azkaban. They had tried to plead innocence when they were first convicted but to no avail. Now, after Voldemort had risen again, enlisted the help of the Dementors, the prison guards, and freed the prisoners, and he rewarded the Lestranges greatly for not renouncing him, and braving Azkaban rather that lie about their loyalty, they pretended they had never put up a fight. The scars the stay in the cells flanked by Dementors, soulless monsters that made you relive your worst memories, had yet to fade from Camilla's mind and she scowled at Narcissa and turned to join her husband's conversation.

Narcissa stood around trying to look useful for the next fifteen minutes. She finally decided to see what Draco was doing and bring down dinner for the Death Eaters later in hopes that the conversation would pick up while she was gone. She walked to the fireplace, which held a hidden staircase that went up to the drawing room above. No one in the room looked surprised when Narcissa left and as soon as she was gone, Lucius said, "Alright, lets get started and make this quick."

One by one, all heads turned to Lucius. "There have been a number of owls to the ministry that we have intercepted. A great number of them said absolutely nothing at all, its no wonder, the ministry never gets anything done, with dozens of owls each day asking for world peace and more environmental acts. Anyway, there were a few important letters in the junk and it turns out Dumbledore has a lot more people on his side than we thought. Now that shouldn't be a problem, but that great oaf of a gamekeeper, Rubeus has managed to get most of the giants on their side."

A low moan echoed around the room. The Death Eaters had been expecting most of their strength and support from the giants in the north.

"There are, however, a surprisingly few number of aurors working against us and that number was greatly diminished this evening. I am quite pleased to inform you that Black, Lupin and Fletcher and dead."

"Here here!" came a shout from the other end of the table and the room burst into applause. Lucius bowed his head slightly and smiled to himself.

"But what about Figg?" Camilla asked.

"We are not sure of her whereabouts," Nott broke in. "You know that the reason we are celebrating tonight was the Dark Mark has been sent up after a muggle killing for the first time in fifteen years. The muggle that has been disposed of was the Auror's grandmother. Figg was not in the house and therefore we can only assume that she was with the others."

"So she is dead too?" someone asked.

"We can presume so, but if not, it won't take long to find her. She has no where to go. Do not worry about a single auror. The Death Mark flies again and we should celebrate. This is the first of a longer and stronger reign of the Dark Lord than ever before!"

At that point, Narcissa walked back down the stairs carrying trays of food and the talk returned to mindless chatter.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Harry stood stock-still. He couldn't have moved if he wanted to. It was as if his legs had been glued to the floor and his eyes to the ghastly scene out his window. Suddenly he saw something that made him feel ten times worse. Arabella, Sirius, Lupin and Fletcher aparated in front of the house with the glowing sign still above it. Arabella's shrill scream echoed down Privet Drive and she shook her head and started walking backwards. She tripped over a hedge and fell to the ground but didn't bother to get up. Sirius, who had taken in the scene much quicker than anyone else, was now racing up the street to number four. Harry's feet suddenly became unstuck and he pulled on his bathrobe and grabbed his wand. He raced down the stairs ignoring the loud grunt that came from Mr. and Mrs. Dursley's bedroom and yanked open the door just as Sirius came leaping up the steps. 

"Harry," Sirius gasped. "Oh my god, Harry, are you alright?"

"I had another dream…" Harry started and then stopped. He wasn't sure how to put his vision. 

"You see it when he kills someone, don't you, Harry?" Lupin said quietly, coming up behind them and making both Harry and Sirius jump.

"God, Moony, don't DO that at a time like this!" Sirius said, shaking all over as he turned to face Lupin. His face was illuminated by a ghostly green light that the Dark Mark gave off, warping his features and making them look somehow quite evil. 

Harry nodded dully and turned his gaze upon Arabella who was sitting on the ground, her head in her hands, and Fletcher, who was vainly trying to comfort her.

"We'd better go see what we can do," Lupin continued. "There should be a whole lot of wizards turning up soon."

"Of course," Sirius shivered, glancing again at the horrid mark in the dark sky. You're right Moony, lets go."

The three of them, Harry, Sirius and Lupin walked slowly back towards number 12. Everything was bathed in a green glow and Harry felt as if he were still dreaming, but he knew he could never have dreamt the look on Arabella's face he saw when she looked up at them as they approached.

"My grandmother?" Arabella questioned, no one in particular, in shock.

Everyone stared blankly at her, unsure of what to say. The silence lengthened and Harry was acutely aware the whole scene; the glowing mark in the sky, Sirius's great panting breaths, Arabella's rigid convulsions, Fletcher, pacing back and forth, and Lupin, standing quite still, hardly seeming to breathe, looking down at Arabella. In the tense silence and hopelessness of the situation, no one wanted to venture any closer to the tainted house, but each of them were thinking the same thing… What if the person who made the mark was still inside the house?

Suddenly, there was a loud whooshing sound and a sound like a clap, and three figures stood beside them. Albus Dumbledore, headmaster of Hogwarts along with Minerva McGonagal and Severus Snape had aperated into the begonia flowers on number 12's front lawn.

The three of them didn't say anything, but Dumbledore's eyes flashed around to each of them and rested for a moment on Harry. McGonagal also look towards Harry and then turn back towards the house. Professor Snape's eyes stayed straight ahead without looking at any of the others. In one motion, the three of them took out their wands and stepped in to the house. An audible sigh of relief rose from Black, Lupin and Fletcher, and although Arabella stayed silent, she seemed to relax a bit and was able to stand up. Remus moved over to her and put his arm over her shoulder and Arabella leaned into him. All of their eyes were fixed upon the house. For hours it seemed, though it couldn't have been more than a few minutes, no one moved. Harry was slightly amazed what with Arabella's scream and Sirius's yelling, none of the Muggles had woken up. Finally, the mark began to blow away in the wind, as brisk breeze had suddenly sprung up over Privet drive and the last traces of the dark mark faded away. Dumbledore exited the house followed by the other two Hogwarts teachers. 

"They're gone?" Sirius said, walking towards him.

"Yes," spat Snape bitterly from behind Dubledore. "You didn't expect them to hang around did you? In any case, you had better get out of it too, Black."

Sirius opened his mouth to retaliate, but Dumbledore raised his hand and he closed his mouth.

"Severus is correct. Mobs of Ministry workers and reporters for the Daily Prophet will be here any second. You are still wanted, and if you don't leave immediately, the consequences could be fatal."

Sirius paused, then nodded and turned to Lupin. "Well then. I'll go…" but he stopped again.

"You'll go to Hogwarts," said Professor McGonagal firmly. Harry assumed Dumbledore had explained all about Black over the summer, as she certainly hadn't know he was innocent the last year. "You can get in as a dog and may stay in my office until I return. You know where it is. The password is _Lion's Roar._"

"If you apperate into Hogsmeade, I'm sure you can manage to get into the castle," Dumbledore told him with a bit of the twinkle Harry knew so well in his eye.

"Yes sir. Thank you professor," Sirius said turning to Professor McGonagal.

"Perhaps I should accompany him in case there is any trouble?" Fletcher asked.

"Yes, that might be wise," said Dumbledore. Black walked over to Harry and hugged him tightly for a moment, whispering, "I'll see you soon," and turned away. Fletcher then shook Harry's hand and turned to join Black. Then they both disappeared. 

"Severus, would you be kind enough to escort Arabella back to Hogwarts as well? I am quite sure that she will not want to be around when everyone shows up, seeing as her Grandmother was attacked."

Snape shot a look at Arabella who lifted her head from Lupin's shoulder to look back. She gave him a small nod and Snape in turn looked back to Dubledore and nodded curtly. 

"I'll go with her," Lupin said protectively. 

"As you wish," Dumbledore replied.

"I really don't see what point I will be serving in this excursion. Perhaps I should remain with you," Snape said sourly.

"I am quite sure you will be able to provide more comfortable accommodations for Arabella and Remus than they could find on their own," said Dumbledore, slightly annoyed.

Snape then growled at Lupin under his breath as he walked over to them. Lupin also shook hands with Harry, but Arabella kissed him on the head and whispered, "Good luck." Snape tapped his foot impatiently as they Lupin and Arabella returned to his side. He then muttered something under his breath and waved his wand around the three of them in a circle. A glowing ring of white light surrounded them and they vanished with a pop. 

"So Harry," Dumbledore said with a small smile. "Quite some excitement tonight."

"Professor Dumbledore, sir, I don't want to sound, er… conceited or anything, but why didn't they attack me?"

"Well, for one thing, I don't believe Voldemort's Death Eaters know exactly where you live. Secondly, when Hagrid brought you here the night your parents were killed," he gestured at number four. "I placed you under a charm that would keep you safe as long as you were in their protection. Even if they did come here, they would be unable to enter the house without suffering excruciating and possibly fatal pain. Any curse they cast upon the house or its inhabitants would have rebounded upon the one who cast it."

Harry stared. He found it amazing to think that so much time, effort and planning on the part of some of the most powerful wizards in the world had gone into keeping him safe as a one-year-old child.

Suddenly, a bright flash of light jolted him out of his thoughts.

"Smile, kid you're gonna be front page news! This is a crime scene!" A excited looking photographer shouted at him. At his side was reporter who was staring intently at Harry.

"Hold it for a sec Jake! That boy! Its Harry Potter!" At these words, the poor photographer became even more flustered and dropped his camera on his toe. More reporters and harrassed looking Ministry members were arriving by the second and at the words Harry Potter, some of the reporters began to mumble among themselves. One of them spoke up loudly and voiced what they all had been thinking. 

"Here now, wasn't Harry Potter at the Quidditch World Cup when the Dark Mark was conjured? And it was conjured with his wand too! What a story- 'Harry Potter present at the last two Dark Marks in 13 years'!" He spoke as though Harry weren't even there. Harry looked around quickly for Dumbledore, but couldn't see him in the rush of people. There were over fifty now, milling around Privet Drive and Harry could see some of the lights in the houses flickering on.

The reporters words caused an uproar. Some people were outraged, but quite a few of the Daily Prophet reporters looked rather interested in a story like that.

"Hold it," a female voice suddenly was heard over the crowd. Her voice sounded nasal and strangely familiar to Harry. "Lets find out the," she seemed to choke on her words a bit as she countinued, "The…whole story." And Rita Skeeter pushed her way through the crowd towards Harry.

Rita Skeeter had been a new reported and special corespondent to the Daliy Prophet the year before and had taken great pleasure in digging through Hogwarts for information and twisting it into a story that antagonized the subject. Her stories had hurt Harry, Hermione and even Hagrid, the gamekeeper, but at the end of the year, Hermione had found out that Rita was an unregistered and illegal animagus and had threatened to turn her in if she ever told horrible lies about anyone again.

"Lets just find out what really happened before we go jumping to conclusions," Rita continued. She looked just like Harry remembered with foul pointed glasses on a chain around her neck and bobbed black hair.

"Fabulous idea Ms. Skeeter," said Dumbledore finally able to reach Harry's side through the mob. At the sight of him, everyone fell quite and some of the ministry workers began to whisper among themselves. "I am quite sure you would rather talk to me than young Harry, here," he went on. The muttering Ministry members turned away and some of the reporters and photographers seemed to back down as well. Harry then remembered how the Minister of Magic, Cornelius Fudge had left the school angrily after hearing Harry's story about Voldemort's return to power. Harry hoped that the Minister hadn't been spreading stories about Dubledore, who was one of the few people who could help in a time like this.

"I know what your Minister had been saying about me and while after seeing this, you may still choose to ignore it, but Lord Voldemort has risen again," the crowd gave a collective shudder at the name. 

Professor McGonagal had been struggling to get to Harry and Dumbledore's side, and finally, fed up, had started blasting a path through the mob with her wand. "The dark Mark has returned. It was here just minutes ago! If you refuse to believe Albus then it is only yourselves and your families that you are endangering!" She shouted, her Scottish accent becoming more pronounced in her rage. Everyone quailed under her furious words and the reporters began to pack up their quills and disparate and the photographers snapped a few more pictures of the house before leaving as well. 

Finally, only a handful of ministry members were left. 

"We've spoken with Arthur," one of them began, and Harry realized he must be talking about Mr. Weasley, Ron's father, who had pledged his support to Dumbledore at the beginning. "We're ready to do whatever we need to do."

"Thank you, Perkins. The culprit is gone, and so is the Dark Mark. I think the only thing we will need some support with is the Muggles right now," Dumbledore said quietly, staring around at the neighbors who had appeared, wide eyed, in front of their houses. 

"Can do, sir," Perkins replied and the ministry members pulled out their wands to perform the necessary memory charms.

"Now, Harry," Dumbledore said, turning to him. "In a few hours, you will need to be at the Hogwarts express to go up to Hogwarts. We can take you there, if you wish."

"I don't have any other way to get to King's Cross, but sir, I don't have any of my books or…" Professor McGonagal cut him off.

"Now, don't worry about that. That can be taken care off."

"Great, then, I'll just go back to bed?" Harry said, still slightly shell shocked from the night's events.

"Perhaps that would be best. We will be by in the morning." Dumbledore said as he and professor McGonagal took out their wands to assist the ministry members.

As soon as Harry returned to number four and his room, he lay down on his bed, and within three breaths, had fallen fast asleep.

Only a few hours later, Harry's alarm went off jolting him out of his dreamless sleep. For a moment he wondered why he had set his alarm for so early, but then remembered; he was leaving for Hogwarts! Harry stumbled sleepily down the stair with his trunk and set it by the door. Mr. Dursley was already awake and eating breakfast in front of the television when he heard Harry.

"Just where do you think you're off to, Boy?" He growled at Harry.

"He will be leaving for school a week early. You nephew has been choosen as a school prefect. I hope this does not pose a problem?" Dumbledore was standing in the open doorway, dressed in floor length wizard robes and holding a wand in his hand. The look on his face was one of slight amusement as he watched Mr. Dusley's mouth work up and down, but with no words coming out. 

Uncle Vernon seemed to be on the verge of saying something extremely rude, but Albus Dumbledore seemed to command even the Muggle's respect. Instead, Vernon gasped, "Well, get off with you then," to Harry and could only stare after them as Dumbledore lifted Harry's trunk with magic and led him out the door.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"Now be good Draco," Narcissa said, a tad tearfully.

Draco Malfoy snorted derisively and saluted to his mother. "See you over Christmas," he called with a drawl in his voice. 

"Come on, Draco, I do not have all day," Lucius called dismissive to his son, who swaggered over and stood next to his father who lifted up his wand.

"Have a good term dear!" Narcissa called, but she wasn't sure Draco heard her as at the moment she spoke, a green light enveloped Draco and his father and they disappeared.

Lucius and Draco appeared on the secret platform 9¾, still shinning with green light. 

"This is where I leave you, son," Lucius said coldly as Draco's trunk appeared next to them and Lucius vanished again, leaving Draco to lug his heavy trunk to the train.

"Malfoy, Draco!" A familiar voice called, reading off a list of names. 

"Yes, professor," Draco said insolently sidling up to Professor McGonagal. 

"Malfoy, as this is not the first day of the school year, the students will not have the train to themselves. In order not to disturb the other passengers," she paused and looked over her spectacles at him for a moment at the word "disturb." She then countinued, "We will be assigning you compartments. Let me see, fifth year boys are in 28 and 29. 29 is full, so you will be in compartment 28, second car. Please get on board.

Midgen, Eloise!" Professor McGonagal sighed and hurried off after a sixth year Hufflepuff.

Draco sighed and resigned himself to lugging his bag to the car. He finally managed to stow it in the side luggage compartment and boarded the train. Counting the numbers, he passed 31, 30, 29 and then reached compartment 28. He pushed open the door, and saw only one person, sitting in the seat by the window. Draco swore out loud and Harry Potter turned to see him, and groaned.


	4. Dragon Rage

****

4.

Draco turned around and walked out of the compartment. He passed the seats full of chatting people and reached the door. Just as he was about to step off the train, Professor McGonagall came up the stairs, ushering the last of the prefects on.

"Mr. Malfoy, exactly where do you think you are going? The train is about to leave!"

"I'm not sitting with Potter." He stared unabashedly at his teacher and spoke with the authority he had commanded at his home.

"Oh yes you are. You should have thought of that a bit earlier, before all the seats were taken," she replied, just as firmly. Just then, the train gave a jolt and started to move slowly down the tracks. Professor McGonagall stepped lightly down.

"What, aren't you coming on the train?" asked Draco, surprised.

"Why of course not. I have some important business. Now I suggest you get back to your seat and if I hear one word..." the train was picking up speed now and a shrill whistle drowned out the rest of her sentence. The last word Draco was able to pick up was "Hogwarts!" and then the train rounded the corner and she was gone.

"Hey, kid! You there!" a train conductor was yelling at Draco. Draco glared at him, his pale face narrowed into a frightening sneer and the conductor started. "That's right," he said with a note of worry in his voice at the look on Draco's face. "Just head on back to your seat now." Draco, without any change in expression, turned to start back to his compartment and resigned to make the next eight hours the most miserable of Harry's life.

He entered the compartment and glared at Harry who was still siting by the window, reading a book. Harry looked up and glared back. He reached for his trunk and opened the lid. Draco only caught a glimpse of neatly folded robes before Harry grabbed what he needed and slammed the trunk again. In one hand, Harry still held his book and in the other, his wand was held out in a threatening gesture. 

"Ok, Malfoy. We have to sit together, but I'm not going to take any of your rubbish this year. I'll sit here, and you sit there," he gestured to the seats by the door. "And if you bother me I'll hex you." He paused, for effect, Draco thought, and then Harry added blandly, "like last year." Unbidden, the image of himself, Crabbe and Golye lying hexed by Harry, Ron, Hermione, and Ron's older brothers, Fred and George, lying in the aisle of the train at the end of last years term filled Draco's mind. He scowled at Harry and said, "How'd you know I didn't want _that_ seat," pointing to where Harry was sitting. 

"Do you want it?" Harry said impatiently, eager to avoid a fight. Draco, sensing this, growled and made no reply, going to sit in the seat by the door.

For minute after long minute they sat in silence. Harry was reading one of his schoolbooks and Draco looked right past him out at the London outskirts that were flashing by the window outside. The heavy silence grew thicker with each page Harry turned and each time Draco tapped his foot. It was as if the small train compartment was a coil and a giant hand was winding it tighter and tighter. Then, just as Draco felt he might explode if he did not do something to relieve the tension, he shouted,

"Stop it!" at the exact same moment Harry did. They looked at each other, Draco scornfully, Harry, tersely.

"I can't stand it when _people_ tap their feet," Harry added stressing the word people, wondering why he felt he needed to excuse his rudeness to Draco; Draco never felt it necessary. Draco narrowed his eyes and opened his mouth to speak but Harry put his head back behind his book. Draco's words caught in his throat and he choked, rather ungracefully. No one, aside from his father, had _ever_ ignored him before.

"Where's your mudblood friend? Isn't she smart enough to be a prefect?" Draco asked, still a bit shakily, trying to find something to get a rise out of Harry. 

"Shut up Malfoy, don't you dare insult Hermione. She's smarter than you without trying!" Harry said angrily, baited by Draco's taunt of Hermione.

"Well, I don't see her on this train. Maybe spending all day and night helping the famous Harry Potter _cheat_ to win the Tri-Wizard tournament didn't help her grades as much as it helped you," Draco said softly, purposely badgering Harry.

"I didn't cheat!' Harry yelled. "And Hermione never..."

"That's right Potter, just try and justify it for yourself."

Harry fumed silently for a moment, trying to tell himself not to sink to Draco's level. But he couldn't let Draco have the last word, so as he picked up his book again he said, "Poor Malfoy, whose mother doesn't care about him enough to teach him any maners." Even to himself, it sounded lame, but from the look on Draco's face, he saw that he had obviously struck a nerve. Draco's face turned white. Then red. 

"At least I have a mother, that's more than you can say Potter. And I know my mother. You know nothing about Lily Potter."

"That's not true!" Harry cried, even though as he spoke he knew it to be nearly true. Draco, sensing that he had just regained the advantage, turned his back to Harry and continued.

"Yeah," He said, sounding almost pitying in a twisted sort of way. "I'll bet, you didn't even know that your mother was sorted into Slytherin."

Harry gasped. "She was _not_!" he shouted. "You made that up!"

"Don't like that, do you Potter? Didn't know that your mummy dear was in dirty Slytherin," Draco grinned and turned back to face him, just in time for Harry's spell to hit him right in the face.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Sirius and Mundungus aperated behind the Shrieking Shack with a pop.

"So where's this cave you mentioned. Could we stay there?" Mundungus Fletcher asked, out of breath. 

"I thought you had a place where we could stay!" interjected Sirius.

"Well, I did. Your cave."

Sirius groaned. "Why can't we go up to the school?"

Mundungus looked at him skeptically.

"Ok that's not a good idea. So we'd probably be arrested on the spot. Fine, I'll take you to the cave, but you won't like it."

"Of course I will!"

Sirius sighed and led the way up a steep path that twisted for almost half an hour out of the village. Finally, panting, the two men came upon a cave almost hidden behind tall grass. Sirius, with a mocking look on his face bowed his friend into the dank and musty cave. Mundungus walked in and looked around and grimaced.

"I told you that you wouldn't like it," Sirius said.

"Oh it's not that bad, it just needs a little fixing up!"

"I've tried to act low-key. No magic around here. I don't want to attract any unwanted..." Sirius looked quickly around as several loud bangs issued, one after another, in Fletcher's direction. What he saw made him jump. The sparks still showering from Mundungus's wand indicated that he had wasted no time in redecorating. A large couch sat in one corner and a wooden bookshelf stood next to it. A cupboard with its door ajar held foods and a long table with four chairs was squeezed into the back of the cave. As a final touch, Mundungus had magicked four high glass windows in the wall of the cave that looked out into the town below.

"Attention." Sirius finished dryly. "_Finente Incantium_," he continued pointing at the windows, which disappeared with another shower of colored sparks.

"Mundungus, do you _want_ us to be caught?" Sirius asked incredulously.

"I can't believe you _lived_ in this place for as long as you did!"

"I needed to be near Harry during the tournament. What did you expect me to do? Check into an inn in town?" Mundungus sobered at that and Sirius paused. "Anyway, as long as that cupboard has become a permenate fixture, lets make dinner."

"Ah, now you're talking!" Mundungus said, grinning. "And over dinner we can talk about the..." Sirius cut him off.

"NO windows!"

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

As Arabella Figg traveled magically through the air, she had felt a hand on her arm, making her feel safer. She had never particularly liked group apperations; it was very easy to leave part of someone behind so it was important to really trust whomever you were traveling with. As she materialized into Hogsmeade, she felt the hand leave her arm and at the same time rather hoped it had been Remus's hand and not Snape's.

"Well, let us get back to the school, then," Snape said coldly.

"It'll be so wonderful to see everyone again!" Arabella said passionately to Lupin who looked rather windblown as if Snape hadn't done quite as good a job transporting him as he had done Arabella.

"And I'm sure we all look forward to the reunion party. Lets go," and with that, Snape strode off down the street.

"Well he hasn't changed a bit," said Arabella, amused. "I never understood why you didn't like him. He's alright in a removed, cold, bossy, and slightly morbid and greasy sort of way." She smile sweetly at Lupin who said quickly,

"He's a slimy git! That's why we didn't like him and I don't know how you could think..." he stopped, and saw that Arabella was laughing.

"I'm just kidding," she said and looped her arm through Remus's and together they followed Snape down the road. 

The three of them, Snape in the lead, climbed the hill up to the Castle. Remus glanced back a few times, as he knew exactly where Sirius and Mundungus were, in a cave on the other side of town, but he strode quickly alongside Arabella. As they passed through the large gates flanked by the stone boars, Hagrid came running towards them, Fang at his heals. As they drew closer, Fang lengthened his stride and bounded ahead of Hagrid to leap onto Arabella, almost knocking her over. Arabella laughed and scratched Fang behind his ears. The huge dog howled with joy as if he had just been reunited with a long lost friend. 

"Would yeh look at that!" Hagrid beamed as he came, panting, within shouting distance. "Fang remembers yeh!"

"Well of course he would, she was down in your hut nearly everyday after school with that dog!" Remus gasped and Hagrid, who had arrived, thumped him a greeting on the back with his boulder-like hand. Snape looked on the scene sourly, rolling his eyes. 

"Come along, unlike some of us, there are important matters I must attend to today," said Snape with a voice like ice. Arabella looked at Remus, who was massaging his knuckles menacingly behind Snape's back and smiled pityingly. 

"Well, we'd best be off then, we'll come by and see you soon Hagrid!" Arabella called over her shoulder as Hagrid waved.

Snape led the way once again, followed by Arabella and then Lupin. As he reached the huge doors of the castle, he pulled out his wand and whispered a spell that made the doors creak open slowly. He held his wand up over his head and stood aside to let Arabella walk through and then stepped in front of Remus and dropped his wand to his side, letting the doors slam in Remus's face. 

Two hours later, with both Remus and Snape a bit more battered and bruised than they had been before, Snape was silently fuming in his office and Lupin in his. Arabella was having a cup of tea with Hagrid. 

"Arabella Figg, my how yeh've grown." Hagrid said with a smile. "The last time I saw yeh yeh were just little girl, and now yeh're all grown up and capturin' death eaters!"

"Hagrid," said Arabella ruefully, "The last time you saw me, I was 22. I hardly call that a 'little girl'." 

Hagrid waved the comment away with happy tears in his eyes. "So 'ow's 'Arry?"

"Poor Harry," Arabella said, a bit sadly. "It's been so hard for him. And he has no one when he's away from school." At that moment, a huge tawny owl smashed into the window and fell to the ground outside. Fang, who was tied to a tree outside, began barking madly.

"What in heaven's name was that?" Arabella asked in shock.

"Come on, lets go take a look," Hagrid said.

As soon as they stepped outside, the owl, which was lying dazedly on the ground, hopped up and began flying in circles around Arabella's head.

"That one looks like 'ees in a bit of hurry. Open it up 'an see what it says," Hagrid said, gesturing to the letter tied to the owl's leg. Arabella reached gingerly for the letter, which was difficult given the speed that the owl was flying around her head, but when it realized what she was trying to do, it stopped and hovered in midair, allowing her to remove its precious burden. She started to slowly open the envelope, but the large bird tried to peck at her and Arabella only just managed to brush it out of the way. 

"Alright, alright, it's important, I'll move faster!" she told the screeching bird. She pulled the parchment out of the envelope quickly, glancing again at the owl which hooted in alarm. 

"What is it Arabella?" Hagrid asked in concern.

Arabella looked at the letter and opened her mouth to reply, but suddenly all the color drained out of her face. She reached behind her as if feeling for something to sit on, but finding nothing, she slumped against the side of Hagrid's hut. Then she turned and retched, throwing up in the trees. Hagrid, white with worry, grabbed the letter from her and his eyes widened as he read. 

"Arabella! What on earth's s'matter with yeh? I'd think yeh'd be happy! They've finally caught Sirius Black!"

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Draco yelled and grabbed at his face, which felt like it was on fire. Through his fingers he saw Harry charging at him, as he was knocked to the ground. Harry, who had little experience fighting the Muggle way, he was usually the one who got beaten up, swung his arms wildly and made no use of his legs, but it was obvious that, even with training, he would not have made a good fighter. Weak punches fell on Draco, but at the moment, Draco was a bit more alarmed by the fact that his face seemed to be burning off. 

"_Finente Incantium_," Draco finally managed to gasp put and as suddenly as it had begun, the burning stopped and everything was back to normal. Draco then turned his attention towards Harry. They both stood slowly. Harry had always been short, and Draco was used to looking down on him, but over the summer, Harry had sprung up and was now at least as tall as Draco was and they were eye to eye. As Draco stared at him, he could almost feel his face grow hot again at the raging fire in Harry's eyes.

"Take it back, Malfoy. Take it back, or I'll curse you again," Harry was gasping for breath.

"Fine, you want me to lie to you about your mother, Potter. Fine, I'll give you your lie, your mother was perfect, and she was sorted into Gryffindor. Are you happy? Don't face the truth then. You know nothing," Draco sneered. Harry made as if to raise his wand again, but at that moment, a train conductor came rushing into the compartment. They hadn't realized how much noise they were making, and the compartment was a mess. While they had been rolling around on the floor, they had bent the table, knocked over the two trunks and scattered robes, books and magical supplies all over the ground. The conductor gazed in horror upon the mess that greeted him and the train gave a sudden lurch as if it too were expressing its displeasure at the scene.

"What in god's name is going on?" said the conductor, a large burly man, in a dangerous whisper. He reminded Harry strongly of Uncle Vernon, however, unlike Uncle Vernon, this man had every right to be angry. 

"This boy attacked me sir. He cursed me and then knocked me down," Draco said calmly. The scene certainly fit his story, Draco had a beautiful black eye blooming on his right eye and his face was still red, although otherwise unharmed. 

"Is this true?" the conductor asked, eyeing Harry.

"Well..." Harry paused, unable to think of the right words to describe what had happened without condemning himself. "I... He provoked me."

"He, _provoked_ you? And the room ended up looking like this? I can't believe the either of you, and you supposed to be school prefects as well!" The conduction scowled at them. "I am sending an owl to your school, no doubt about that. And in the meantime, you had better clean all this up. Now." And the conductor stalked away down the corridor of the train.

Harry swung his wand in shame and anger, sending sparks flying through the air. Draco just laughed silently at him. Harry screwed his eyes up tight and clenched his fists. He took a few deep breaths and then bent down to refold his scattered robes. He worked slowly, making an obvious effort not to notice that Draco stood watching him, doing nothing at all. Finally, as Harry finished, Draco gave a flick of his wand and his own robes soared and neatly folded themselves in his trunk. 

"I suppose you spend so much time working for those muggles you live with that you've forgotten how to do magic," Draco sneered.

"That's right, I've quite forgotten magic. That's why it felt as though your face was burning off a minute ago," said Harry, not bothering to look up. 

Draco shot Harry a look a pure loathing, but then, almost in spite of himself, said "Where did you learn that spell anyway. That couldn't have been legal. Did your little Mudblood friend teach you that too?"

"No," said Harry coldly. "I learned it from your father." He smirked slightly at the look of confusion on Draco's face, for Draco had no way of know that his father had been one of the Death Eaters shooting spells at Harry to keep him from escaping the year before, after the third tri-wizard tournament event. Silently, both boys continued to clean the compartment.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

In the Leaky Cauldron, Professor McGonagall sat alone at a table in the back of the pub with huge bags filled with schoolbooks next to her. The pub was not crowded, but the few customers that were there did not seem to notice her until Professor Dumbledore swept into the room and sat down with her. Dumbledore seemed to shed his own light and to command the attention of all in the surrounding area. Tom, the bartender came quickly over to take any orders, but Dumbledore waved him away and he left slowly, looking rather disappointed.

"Professor, this may come as a bit of a shock to you..." Dumbledore started slowly, looking hard at Professor McGonagall.

"A bit of a shock? My dear Headmaster, it came as a bit of a shock this morning when the whole of Diagon Alley was talking about it. This morning it was a bit of a shock," McGonagall repeated herself faintly.

"Then you know that..." Dumbledore tried again.

"I know the word on the street, and I know that Sirius has managed to get into more trouble than anyone I have ever known. What are we to do now?" Professor McGonagall said angrily. 

"Professor, Sirius was taken into custody because he was found with Mundungus Fetcher. There is still a chance for him if we act swiftly," Dumblefore continued.

"Found with Fletcher? What good does that do him?" Professor McGonagall hissed intensely across the table. "_We_ many know who Fletcher is, and his good intentions, but others may not be able to see that, judging by his," she paused then said, "background."

"Minerva," said Dumbledore severely, peering at her over his half-moon spectacles. "Mundungus Fletcher is notorious for his short temper and his love of alcohol, but he was still a very respected auror. And if it were not for the fact that he has given his word as one who has spent his life fighting the dark arts that Sirius is to be trusted, Sirius would be dead by now, instead of awaiting trial."

"But without Peter, how are we to prove that Sirius is innocent?" Professor McGonagall said hopelessly. Dumbledore bowed his head and said,

"This I do not know."

"But what are we to tell Harry? Sirius has been like a parent to him!"

"Minerva, the boy is fifteen years old, he can handle the truth."

"Just like he can handle the truth about why You-Know-Who wanted to kill him? Like he can handle the truth about what really happened the night after the tournament? Like he can handle the truth about parents? Albus, which truths is he really ready to take?"

"You are a convincing debater, Minerva," Dumbledore said with a slight smile. "Perhaps you are right. We will see what we can do before we tell Harry what has happened."

Professor McGonagall looked at him, her voice full of emotion and said quietly, "Thank you Dumbledore. I don't know how long we can hide this from him, or even how long we want to, but I truly believe that now is not the time to let him know of another disaster."

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Harry was relieved when he felt the train slow and finally stop at the Hogsmeade station, even though he was worried of the punishment that might await him at school. He found that at this point he didn't care, however, when, as he stepped off the train and saw the tall castle over looking the town in the last of the dying sun, he felt he had finally come home. The twenty-eight Hogwarts students huddled together on the platform. Draco Malfoy had managed to move as far away from Harry as possible, and was talking with another Slytherin prefect. Harry looked around for the Gryffindors and saw Alicia Spinnet, a chaser on the Gryffindor Quidditch team, and hurried over to her.

"Harry!" she cried happily when she saw him. "Congratulations. How's your summer been?"

"It's been alright," Harry started, feeling that it would be best to leave out the fact that the second dark mark in fourteen years and the first death because of it had appeared on his street. "Are you a prefect to?"

"Nope," grinned Alicia, "I'm Head Girl." She pulled a shiny badge out of her pocket and showed it to Harry.

"That's great, Alicia!" said Harry, genuinely happy for her.

"So, have you been playing much Quidditch? I know we didn't have the Interhouse Tournament last year, but I've practiced almost everyday this summer. I don't want to lose my place on the team," Alicia said in a rush.

"Er...why would you lose your place? You're a great chaser," said Harry, confused.

"Do you really think so?" Alicia asked hopefully.

"Yeah, of course," said Harry, who still had no idea why he was having this conversation. Alicia was a wonderful chaser and she knew it to.

Just then, the crowd of Hogwarts students started to move, and Harry and Alicia had to stop talking and hurry to catch up. It appeared that the carriages that would take them up to the school had arrived. In the confusion to get into a carriage, Harry was separated from Alicia and ended up in a carriage with two sixth-year Hufflepuff girls that he didn't know and a fifth year Ravenclaw, Terry Boot, who he knew by name only. They all exchanged greetings, it turned out that he had heard of the Hufflepuffs, Marie and Noelle were both friends of Fred and George. After introductions, Harry didn't need to introduce himself, everyone knew whom he was, Marie and Noelle sat whispering together and occasionally giggling. The subject of their amusement appeared to be a seventh-year boy who was riding in the carriage in front of them. Terry sat looking out the window and said nothing to anyone, leaving Harry alone with his own thoughts, which had become more troubled. With the castle fast approaching, Harry began to wonder what exactly the train conductor had written in the letter he sent to the school.

The carriage ride was much shorter than he remembered and soon he was climbing the marble steps to the huge front door. Harry glanced over the grounds towards Hagrid's cabin and saw smoke rising from the chimney and the shadowy figure of Hagrid bustling around his house. As he walked slowly up, he found himself next to Alicia again.

"So, do you have any idea why we're here so early?" Harry asked her loudly, over the noise all the other students were making.

"No idea. Well, some idea. I think that Dumbledore wants to lecture us about You-Know-Who coming back," Alicia said. "It can't be true, though. My mum works for the Ministry, and they'd know if something had happened. They haven't gotten a single owl of any importance for a while now."

"Well that doesn't exactly sound like a good thing," said Harry under his breath.

"What?" asked Alicia.

"Nothing," said Harry quickly. They had reached the doors. The head boy, a Ravenclaw that Harry didn't know raised his hand to knock, but the door swung open before he had touched it. 

A severe looking Professor McGonagall stood right inside the Great Hall and instantly, the students fell silent. 

"You have no doubt had a long journey, and dinner will be available throughout the evening in the Dining Hall, but should you wish to retire to your Common Rooms, the passwords for all the houses will be 'Founders' until the rest of the school arrives. You will receive further information on why you are here tomorrow morning." 

There was a low murmuring among the students but it was soon stifled.

"Welcome back," Professor McGonagall continued and she stepped aside to let the students pass by her. As the throng of people moved quickly into the castle, she called out in a voice like ice, "Mr. Potter and Mr. Malfoy, you are to stay here."

Alicia glanced at Harry curiously, but Harry looked away. She shrugged and called out "See ya Harry!" And then she was gone.

Harry walked slowly over to Professor McGonagall. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Draco doing the same. Professor McGonagall was looking at them with an expression of utmost fury. 

"Mr. Potter, Mr. Malfoy, I am pleased to let you know that you have publicly disgraced our school. We trusted you to travel on the train alone, to behave yourselves and to respect the property of the train. You have failed our trust. How you can expect to be prefects, students who are looked up to by those younger, if you can not even obey the rules set for your own safety and that of others?"

Harry looked at his feet. Draco stared insolently into his teacher's eyes. 

"Do either of you have anything to say for yourselves?" 

Both boys shook their heads.

"I have been in contact with Professor Dumbledore about the two of you, and he has quite a unique suggestion as to what your punishment should be," she said grimly. "I would like the both of you to go quickly upstairs and pack a small overnight bag. Do not bring more than you can carry comfortably."

Both Harry and Draco started in surprise but didn't say a word. As they turned to go, Professor McGonagall said, "Oh, Mr. Malfoy, before you leave, you received and owl, right before the carriages arrived. It is from your father." She pulled an unopened envelope sealed with wax and an ornate 'M', the emblem of the Malfoy family. Draco took it and ripped it open. He scanned the page, and Harry saw his eyes widen, but he also looked slightly gratified. He pocketed the letter and Professor McGonagall said, "Go on, the both of you. I want you back here in twenty minutes!"

Twenty minutes later, Harry and Draco were once again standing in the Great Hall. Harry was eating a hastily made turkey and ham sandwich and Draco was leaning against the wall, looking expectant. At that moment, Professor. McGonagall moved swiftly down the stairs towards them. 

"Ah, you are all prepared I see. Follow me." And with that, she lead them out of the castle and down the great stone steps. They walked down the drive where the had been dropped off by the carriages earlier that evening and past the winged boars at the gate. They crossed the dark grounds and strange shadows seemed to leap out at them as they moved. Instinctively, Harry drew out his wand.

"Tonight, you will serve your punishment," said Professor McGonagall severely. "But you will not be serving a detention. Professor Dumbledore and I had something else in mind." At that moment, the dark trees of the forbidden forest loomed up in front of them. "Your task will be to spend the night in the forest."

Harry, who was in mid-swallow, began choking and then coughing violently. Draco stood stalk still, looking stunned. 

"You're mad!" Draco said shakily. "Utterly, raving mad. We will be killed!"

"Don't be stupid, Mr. Malfoy. You will not be killed. We have plenty of ways of monitoring you. And, as I am sure you are quite aware, between you and Mr. Potter, I believe you know more curses and charms than the rest of the school combined. I nearly pity any creature that tries to attack you." Professor McGonagall gave them and odd look. "Now, once you enter the forest, you will be unable to leave it until morning, so there are two things I wish to recommend to you. First, it would be to your benefit to stay on the path."

Harry snorted. He had had plenty of experience with that rule.

"Second," Professor McGonagall continued. "While you are free to go your separate ways, it might be..._wise_ of you to stay together."

Harry and Draco shot each other looks of pure loathing. 

"Well, into the woods then!" she said shrilly. 

Neither boy moved. Then Draco gave a tiny shake of his head.

"This is your punishment," said Professor McGonagall in a deadly voice. "You have disgraced your houses, your school and our whole community. Mr. Malfoy, I thought you had a higher respect for your family. Mr. Potter, I thought you had a higher respect for yourself. Now go into the forest. You will be perfectly safe."

Harry, his insides churning, looked up into his head of house's face but saw only coldness in her eyes. He heaved a great sigh and turned towards the wood. He walked slowly, but steadily and soon was between the first trees. He turned to see if Draco had started to follow or not, but both Draco and Professor McGonagall, and even the castle were gone.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

All done with Chapter four. Changed the name from Dragon's Rage to Dragon's Pride. I probably won't be able to get Chapter Five up for a while so you'll have to live with this for the next week or so. As always, drop me a line and tell me how you liked it. Oh, I'm on Schnoogle now, so check me out there and review it to make me feel happy, even if I only have chapters one and two up there. Thanks!


	5. Letters in the Dark

Of Werewolves and Wanderers (5/?)

Meaghan McCormack (Meaghan_McCormack@yahoo.com)

Action/Adventure

Keywords: Arabella Figg, Harry, Malfoy, Lupin

Rating: PG

Spoilers: All Books

About Me: The summer after the fourth book came out, I had an irresistible urge to write my own version of the fifth one while I waited. After finishing the first chapter, I let some of my friends see it, and their reactions were so great towards it, that I decided to continue it and post it here. I hope you like it as much as my friends did!

Disclaimer: This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by JK Rowling, various publishers including but not limited to Bloomsbury Books, Scholastic Books and Raincoast Books, and Warner Bros., Inc. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended. All characters belong to the brilliant mind that created them (JKR) and the multibillion-dollar company that bought them from her (WB). Enjoy!

****

5.

Letters in the Dark

Harry shook his head rapidly back and forth to clear it. Everything had happened to fast. One minute he was standing in the great hall with Alicia, the next he was standing in what appeared to be the middle of the Forbidden Forest. He walked over to a fallen log to sit down, but as he started to sit, the log rolled away from under him. He righted himself quickly and moved to its new location to try again. This time it rolled right at him taking his feet out from under him and causing him to fall flat on his back. The log seemed to give a hollow sort of chuckle before rolling away into the dark trees.

Pushing himself up, Harry rubbed his back ruefully. For a few moments, he just sat and thought. The forest was a dangerous place, but with common sense he would be all right. 

"Wouldn't it be nice if something large ate Malfoy, though," Harry thought out loud right as Malfoy walked into the clearing. He was much paler than usual and he was biting his lower lip. The expression on his face reminded Harry strongly of the time, four years ago, when he they had gone into the forest on a detention with Hagrid. Malfoy had run off screaming at the moment Harry had been in mortal danger. 

"Funny, Potter. I was just thinking the same thing," Malfoy sneered.

"Well, I'm not sorry I said that, but there is no way I'm going to get into a fight with you here. To much magic or noise could attract something..." There was a loud creak between to trees and Harry paused and looked around. "Else," he finished.

"Fine," said Draco coldly. There was another loud creak from the opposite direction, and Draco's face screwed up in fear.

"Well, come on then, lets go," Harry said impatiently.

"Go? Wouldn't it be be-best to stay here?" Draco stammered.

"S'not very comfortable is it?" Harry replied, gesturing to the damp and rocky ground and the tightly packed trees, which were whispering in a brisk wind. 

"Oh, fine," Draco said half-heartedly. He glanced again at the place where the castle should be, but saw only trees. He turned back and jogged to catch up with the retreating Harry. They followed the winding path through more trees. Both Harry and Draco jumped at any slight noise, but they didn't stop walking. Harry found himself wishing that he had packed a torch instead of a book, but enough moonlight filtered down through the tight branches to allow them to see a little ways in front of them, and to stop them from tripping. After what seemed like hours of picking their way through the tangled tree roots, but what could have been only a few minutes, the two boys emerged in a sheltered clearing, covered with dry leaves. 

"This looks alright, eh Potter?" Draco asked sullenly. 

"Yeah," Harry agreed. "Looks fine."

Both boys moved to the center of the clearing and sat down with their backs to each other, hating the other just as much as always, but finding it impossible to leave the false safety the other's company gave. 

Harry later wandered around the clearing a bit, but must have finally dozed off for at some point during the night, he had a very strange dream.

__

Ron and Hermione stood looking at Harry, who was walking out of the Forbidden Forest. 

"Funny," Ron said in an echo-y voice. "I didn't think I ever see those_ two together."_

"Oh Ron, you can be so simple sometimes," cried Hermione. "You can't say you didn't see it coming." She smiled and turned to Harry.

"I told you that you were a great wizard Harry."

Harry opened his mouth to respond when he felt a hand on his shoulder. He turned, startled and looked up into the eyes of his father.

"He was my friend too, Harry. That was a great thing you did, a great thing." And there was his mother, crying but smiling through her tears, with Ron and Hermione looking on happily. All of a sudden, Draco came bursting out of the woods behind them yelling Harry's name.

"Harry!"

"Harry, wake up! Potter!" Harry woke with a start and for a moment tried to remember his dream. He knew it had had his parents in it, but that was all he could remember. Someone calling his name had woken him. He realized that at some point between waking and sleeping, he had moved almost to the edge of the woods and had lain down so that he was almost invisible in the dark foliage. He sat up and raised his hands to rub his eyes but realized he had never taken his glasses off.

"Harry Potter!" Draco's voice called again and this time it was joined by a chorus of clicking and snapping, and Harry realized what had woken him. Draco had fallen asleep in the center of the clearing and he had woken to find himself surrounded by a swarm of giant spiders. 

"Aragog," Harry moaned and ducked behind the nearest tree careful not to make any noise. Harry's past near-death experience had been terrifying enough, and this time there was no Ford-Angelica to save them. 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

When Arabella thought back on the last twenty-four hours, she was amazed at how little she remembered. She felt as if she had just stepped off of an out-of-control roller coaster and it was all she could do to keep from toppling over. As soon as she had heard the new of Sirius's capture, she had run to tell Remus, leaving a very confused Hagrid alone. The two of them had run into Hogsmeade where they apperated to London and burst into the Leaky Cauldron only to find Professor Dumbledore waiting for them. He explained that there was nothing they could do that evening and sent them up to the Inn above for the night.

Arabella couldn't sleep. For hours she had tossed and turned but finally gave up to get a drink of water. She paused by her large glass doors that looked out over Diagon Alley. The street was dim, lit only by the candle in the streetlights. The signs of the shops hung quite still in the cold night air, untroubled by any wind. A single light was on in the Gringotts bank of a night watchman but besides the streetlights and the watchman's lantern, there was no other light anywhere. No other lights, that was, except the light of the room of the inn next door. Arabella started, wondering who else would be up so late. She slowly pushed open the balcony doors and stepped out, pulling her nightgown tightly around herself in the sudden chill. She turned to look at the room with the light on, but even before she saw the man on the small plastic chair with his head in his hands, she knew who it was. 

Remus Lupin looked over at her and gave a wry smile.

"You should get some sleep," he said dryly. 

"And you," she replied.

He shook his head once. 

"Well, if we're both going to sit up all night, would you like to come sit up over here?" Arabella asked gently. 

Lupin nodded and slowly got up from his chair. "I'll be over in a bit."

Arabella hurried to pull on a pair of jeans and a Pride of Portree Quidditch T-shirt. She just finished getting dressed when there was a knock on her door. She hurried over to let Lupin in. Under closer inspection, Remus looked quite wan and much more tired that one might normally look after losing only one night's sleep. He walked over to the large couch and collapsed. He looked much smaller than usual and Arabella was put in mind of his appearance while in school the night after a full moon. Of course, at that time, she hadn't known that he was a werewolf. At that thought, she instinctively looked out the window to glance and the moon.

"Don't worry," Lupin said lightly. "Full moon's not for another fortnight."

They sat in an awkward silence for a few moments, then Remus burst out, "Four years after I graduated, I lost my three best friends in one night. A year ago, I found that one of those friends wasn't as lost as I might have thought." He paused, the continued even more intensely. "And I'll be damned if I lose him again." Remus shook with surpressed grief and anger. Arabella looked at him in sympathy and quite suddenly surprising even herself, she moved to sit down next to him on the couch, and put her arms around him. For minutes, they sat quietly, Arabella's mind was racing, but she was unable to put any of her thoughts in words. Finally, she turned to face Lupin and said, very quietly, "We were sixth years."

"I know," Lupin replied.

"Why did we stop going out? I don't remember," Arabella asked. She did remember. She remembered very well, his exact words, "You don't know what I am, I don't want anyone to get hurt." At the time she hadn't know whom he had wanted to protect. Even now, she still wasn't sure. She just wanted to hear the words from him again. They had always remained great friends, but they had never been able to completely forget the relationship that they had once had.

"You know why. It could never work. I'm a werewolf," he said gruffly, avoiding her eyes. 

"That doesn't matter to me, Remus, you know that," She said a bit sadly.

He managed the closest thing to a smile that Arabella had seen from him all evening, and hugged her tightly. Then he stood up and kissed her on the top of the head.

"We really need to get some sleep," he said and held out his hand to help her up. She took it and their eyes lingered on the others for a moment, Arabella's tired and lacking in their usual brightness and Remus's a little confused. 

"Good night. We'll do what we can in the morning," Remus said, and turned and walked out into the hall on the dark inn. 

"Good night," Arabella replied and closed the door behind him.

Arabella changed back into her nightgown and crawled into bed.

"That doesn't matter to me," she whispered into the darkness. It was a long time before she was finally able to doze off.

In the room next door, Remus lay staring at the ceiling, wide-awake, his mind full of memories, and what the next day might bring.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"Oh bloody hell," Harry whispered to himself gazing at the scene from behind his tree. Draco was stuck to the ground by a sticky secretion that the spiders had produced and it was slowly hardening into a see-through shell. Only Draco's head was still uncovered. Dozens of spiders swarmed though the clearing and Harry could make out the shadows of many more between the far trees. Knowing that there was no way he could take them on alone he thought desperately about how to get Draco and get out. Unbidden, his last meeting with Aragog, the flesh eating spider that Hagrid had raised while he was in school, came to mind and with it, came Aragog's words. "The thing that lives in the castle is an ancient creature we spiders fear above all others..." and suddenly, Harry had an idea. 

He glanced again at the scene in the clearing and knew he had better hurry. The clear resin had covered Draco's face and he had stopped struggling. Summoning up his courage, Harry burst into the center clearing and shouted at the spiders, throwing them, for a brief moment into confusion.

"Aragog!" Harry yelled at the top of his voice.

A sudden clicking and snapping erupted from the angry spiders as they recognized him and a huge wizened old spider emerged from the pack.

"You... you are the boy Hagrid sent," Aragog hissed dangerously.

"Uh, yeah, that's right," said Harry nervously as the spiders pushed in on all sides. He risked a glance at Draco and wished he hadn't. Draco's face looked distorted out of proportion when seen through the crude rubber and it had gone slightly blue. 

"You escaped once, but that will not happen again," Aragog continued and at these words the horde of spiders formed a full tight circle around Harry and Draco. 

"Wait! You know what lies in the school now, your mortal enemy!" Harry gasped, praying that no news had reached the spiders of the Basilisk's death over two years before. 

The spiders hissed in fear and anger at the mention of the monster, but Aragog spoke again. "And why would it concern us?"

"I can call it here!" Harry shouted, panicking as he felt his feet become cemented to the ground by the same casing which held Draco. At once, the spiders backed away from him, but Aragog stepped forward. 

"Prove it," he hissed and Harry was unable to tell if there was fear behind the old spider's anger or not. "Prove you have the snake's tongue."

Harry knew he had to hurry if he wanted to save Draco. For a brief moment, he wondered weather Professor McGonagal had any idea what was going on and weather help would show up if the situation became to dire, but he didn't want to wait to find out. Encouraged by their leader's incredulity, the spiders had moved forward again and Harry felt his knees harden in the ooze. He closed his eyes and pictured snakes. He tried to picture the Boa from the zoo that he had first spoken too, the garden snakes that made his aunt scream, every picture from a book or movie he had ever seen of a snake, and finally, the basilisk that he had defeated in his second year and he heard himself say out loud, "come here!"

Only instead of Parseltongue he spoke in English and Aragog cackled gleefully. 

"You can not call the worm and we will have two meals tonight." Harry, knowing that he had failed tried to bend over to grab something, anything, to fight with only to find that he was stuck up to his waist. He turned to look again at Draco who, he thought, must be dead at this point from lack of air, and as that cold distorted face looked back at him, he had a sudden inspiration.

"I can call the basilisk," he yelled and his next words could barely be heard over the clicking and hissing of the spiders at the name of their enemy. "And I will prove it." With that, he yanked his wand from his sleeve and, picturing the largest snake he could imagine, he yelled, "_Serpensortia_!"

The night exploded and suddenly between Harry and Aragog was the largest snake he had ever seen. Twelve feet of poisonously green coils unwrapped themselves and Harry looked down at the spiders around him that were backing away from him again. He grinned at Aragog and then turned to the snake which was staring expectantly at him and shouted, "_attack the spider_!" and this time, he did not speak in English as a snake's hiss escaped him and the spiders fled, Harry's snake close behind.

Momentarily winded by the yelling and his victory, Harry closed his eyes and caught his breath. He looked down at the gunk that he had been trapped in for the first time all night and tried to think of the best way to get rid of it. He decided on fire and muttered a few words under his breath. Instantly, a jet of flame issued from his wand and he waved it in a slow circle around his sticky prison. Slowly, he felt the residue loosen up and he was able to pull himself out of the quagmire that was left.

Rushing towards Draco, without thinking about it, he brought his foot down right above Draco's face, breaking though the thin layer. Harry stopped his foot right before he touched Draco, and immediately wondered why; he had been longing to kick Malfoy's face in for as long as he had known him. Still, it seemed silly to kick him while he was down and Harry kicked and pried away the rest of the see-through sarcophagus.

To his great surprise, as well as his great relief, Malfoy was still breathing. 

"_Enervate!_" Harry whispered and Malfoy stirred from his death-like position. 

Before he even opened his eyes, Malfoy groaned out loud and said to no one in particular, "When my father hears about this, Dumbledore's going to wish he had never held a wand."

"Give it a rest, Malfoy," Harry said, coldly. 

At that, Malfoy opened his eyes and stared up at Harry. Disliking the feeling of being below his enemy, he quickly stood up, but then clutched at his head. 

"How'd you get rid of them?" Malfoy asked.

"Another trick from the Malfoy family," Harry said and Draco scowled. "All I can say is, you owe me one."

At this, Malfoy looked incredulously at Harry.

"A Malfoy never owes anything to anyone but himself," he said, as if reciting lines. He then seemed to realize what he had said and, to Harry's surprise, put his hand over his pocket in his robe. "Yet, I suppose you did do me a bit of a favor, Potter. Here." With that, he tossed the letter that Professor McGonagall had handed to him earlier to Harry. Harry looked at Malfoy and then at the letter at his feet.

"Go on, read it. It is more important to you that it is to me. Although I dunno if I am really doing you a favor," Malfoy drawled. At that Harry grabbed the letter and ripped it open. As he read the cramped handwriting of Lucius Malfoy, the color drained from his face.

For a moment he was silent, but then he turned on Draco. 

"I am going to kill your father," he said bluntly.

For a moment Malfoy looked surprised, then gratified.

"Do you really think he had anything to do with all this? My father doesn't care about your convict godfather. In fact, I don't even know why he bothered to tell me."

Harry's heart and mind were racing. He knew he had to do something, had to leave the school at once to get to Sirius. But the only way that he could prove Sirius's innocence would be to produce Peter Pettigrew. At the thought of Peter, who was currently in the service of Voldemort, he felt his scar twinge. Suddenly, Harry had an impossible idea. Maybe, just maybe, there was a chance that his attachment to Voldemort through his scar could lead him to Voldemort. And wherever Voldemort lurked, he would find Peter.

"When's the trial?" Harry said madly, taking a step towards Malfoy. Malfoy lept away from a Harry he had never seen, with a wild, desperate look in his eyes. 

"Tomorrow afternoon, didn't you read the whole letter?" Malfoy asked. Glancing again at the letter, Harry shoved it roughly into his pocket and started running. 

"Hey!" Malfoy shouted after him, and then started running as well, following Harry's shadows in the very first rays of the sun peaking over the horizon.

"I'm going to help my godfather!" Harry replied. Then, he stopped and turned to face Malfoy.

"You," Malfoy panted, "can't...leave me... here!"

"I have to," said Harry simply. And with that, he took off running again, away from the school, and to the village of Hogsmeade. 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

It was a bleary eyed Arabella that met Lupin, Dumbledore and Professor McGonagall the next morning in the pub of the Leaky Cauldron for bubble and squeak and a tall glass of orange juice. 

"Glad you could join us, my dear," said Professor Dumbledore gravely. 

"So do we have any more of a plan formulated?" she asked, apprehensive of an answer. If there were still no plan, then there would be little hope for Sirius as his trial was later the next day, but if Dumbledore had some dangerous plan in mind that might endanger more of her friends...

"Bella, we need to find Peter," Lupin said quickly, as if seeing her train of thought. 

"We planned on splitting up as soon as we finish breakfast. Dumbledore will go to Little Hangton," she paused at Arabella's confused glance around the table and continued. "The home of You-Know-Who's father and grandparents. I will go to Albania where You-Know-Who was last rumored to be seen before Potter's encounter with him."

"And you and I will comb both Diagon and Knockturn Alley for any sign, any rumor or hint of where Peter may be," Lupin finished. Arabella nodded.

"As you can clearly see, it is imperative that we find Pettigrew before Sirius's trial, otherwise, there will be no way to prove Sirius's innocence."

When they had all pushed their food around their plate for a few minutes more, the four adults stood up from the table and without any words, turned and walked off in their three separate directions. 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Lucius Malfoy lifted up the unfinished letter from his wife's desk and stared at it, hard. He dropped it in disgust and as he turned away, spoke three sharp words, and the entire desk burst into flames. The dry wood burned quickly, and in a few moments, there was nothing more in it's place than a pile of ashes. For years he had doubted the loyalty of his wife to the dark ways but he had never imagined her openly opposing and endangering his work. He was slightly gratified that the house elves feared him more than they cared for his wife for it was his servants who had alerted him to the confessional his wife had penned to Dumbledore. Still, it was a blow that he had come so close to being exposed and he could not let it happen again. 

His other pressing family issue was the wavering loyalty of his son. If his damned wife hadn't been so insistent on spending time with him... However that would soon be a thing of the past and it was important that his son continue to hate those who he needed to fight. 

Lucius thought hard for a moment and then shouted, "_incendio"_ at the empty fire place. As flames shot up he pulled a pinch of red powder out of his pocket and threw it into the blaze. 

"Nott!" Lucius shouted into the flames and the portly man's head appeared almost before he finished speaking.

"Yes, Lucius?" Nott asked complacently. 

"I need you to do me a favor."

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


	6. All Fall Down

****

6.

All Fall Down

Draco had no idea what to do, so, figuring that his punishment was over, due to the sun climbing in the sky, decided to head back in the general direction of the castle. He wondered why he had bothered to give his father's letter to Harry in the first place. He should have known that Harry would have pulled some irrational stunt in a mad and fruitless attempt to redeem his godfather. Should have known he would have ended up alone in the woods, faced with the prospect of telling both the teachers and Harry's friends where Harry had gone. As if anyone would believe him. 

"Damn Harry Potter," Draco muttered out loud. "Can't you think of anyone but yourself? What am _I _supposed to do?"

"Well, I suppose that being the savior of the known world can make one a bit self-centered at times," said a new voice knowledgeably. Draco looked up in surprise. A small green creature, that looked quite like a hairless monkey was starring down at him.

"What are you?" Draco asked, his face screwing up in disgust.

"Oh that's nice. No 'How do you do, Mr. Clabbert' no, 'What a lovely surprise to see you this morning,' " the green creature said in a hurt tone. At his words, the large pustule on his forehead changed colors from green to a dark blue. "Of course," the thing continued, "you being a Malfoy and all, what did I expect? I suppose your mother never taught you any manners." 

That struck a nerve. 

"Don't you dare insult my mother," Draco retorted childishly. The creature laughed and jumped down from the tree to land in front of Draco. It was about waist height and looked up at the boy in front of him. "How do you know my name anyway?" Draco asked.

"No need to ask who you are. My father told me that all the Malfoys have blond hair, gray eyes, and fancier clothing than anyone else could afford," the thing replied with another grin. Draco opened his mouth, then paused at the familiar sounding words. He thought hard for a moment, then the sense of deja vu passed. 

"Fine, so you know who I am, but what are you? And if you know anything about my family, you should know better than to taunt me," Draco said haughtily. 

The creature cackled and said majestically, "I am a clabbert. You must not pay to much attention during your Care of Magical Creatures classes. I am a psychic animal. And if you were the least bit dangerous, my forehead would be flashing like mad. You may call me Bert." 

"I won't need to call you anything. I'm leaving," Draco said, turning away from the animal and starting down the path towards the castle. However, fifty yards away, the clabbert dropped out of the trees and landed in front of him again.

"So, decided what to do about Mr. Potter, then?" Bert asked.

"No bloody clue. Stupid git, goes rushing after his stupid convict godfather. If I tell the truth, no one will believe me. Why does he have to get his damn hero complex now? I hope he does get knocked off by You-Know-Who."

"You'd rescue you mother, though, if she were being framed?" the clabbert asked Draco.

"No, because my mother has no enemies," Draco said and again walked past Bert down the trail.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Nott surveyed his handiwork. Overall, the letter was bland enough to pass as an invitation from anyone. The parchment in his hand read,

__

Narcissa,

You have put yourself in a very dangerous position and it is imperative that you join with us as soon as possible. Can you get out of the manor to meet us outside the Leaky Cauldron tomorrow at midnight? Only send return owl if your answer is no, we don't want to risk more correspondence than is necessary. Thank you and good luck. We have paid the bail for Mundungus Fletcher and he will meet you there and take you to Dumbledore.

Cheers,

Arabella Figg

He wasn't sure about the "cheers" at the end, but he hadn't time to worry about it at the moment. He sealed the parchment with unstamped wax and tied the letter to the legs of the post office owl he had borrowed. As the owl flew out of the window, Nott turned to the man tied to the chair on the other side of his study. 

"Why haven't you killed me yet?" Mundungus Fletcher asked coldly.

Nott smirked. "I'm not planning on killing you. Directly. Don't worry, you'll be back with your convict friend soon enough, maybe even in time for a double execution."

"What are you going to do?" Mundungus asked, a slight hint of nerves in his voice.

"Oh, its not what I'm going to do," Nott replied. "It's what you're going to do."

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Harry was completely out of breath by the time he had reached the outlying fields of Hogsmeade and he still had no idea what he could do to find Voldemort. All he had to rely on was the semi-psychic connection he had through his scar to his archenemy. He sat down between two rows of corn and thought for a moment. He was filled with a rage that he hadn't felt since he had been faced with Sirius before he knew that his godfather was innocent, and he had wanted nothing more than to kill him then. He wondered what his godfather would think if he knew that he had been the indirect cause of the most anger in his godson's life. 

Suddenly, it hit him. Harry sat bolt upright wondering why he hadn't thought of it before. While nursing his rage it had come to him: his connection to Voldemort was strongest when Voldemort was feeling particularly vindictive. All he had to do was make Voldemort horribly angry, go to sleep and then dream about his nemesis's location. 

Harry slumped back down. How on earth was he to accomplish that? One didn't just pen a letter flaming Voldemort and then expect to get a rise out of the embodiment of pure evil. Besides, how would he know where to send the letter? Harry started laughing slightly maniacally as he imagined writing a letter to Voldemort. 

"I really think I'm losing it," Harry said out loud as his laughter subsided. Still hiccuping slightly, although no longer sure if it was with laugher or sobs, Harry lay down in the field to try and get a bit more comfortable, and within five minutes, he was fast asleep. 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Narcissa had sent a letter to her son at school telling him everything, assuming that by the time he received it, even if he did tell his father, she would be in Dumbledore's protection. She rather hoped that Draco would keep her secret, at least for the time being. She wasn't sure how Lucius would react, but at the moment she didn't quite care. She had never really minded her husband's evil plots during Voldemort's original rise to power. At times it all felt so surreal, the murders, the secret meetings, the talk of taking over the whole world seemed so comic- ridiculous, even- that she had no qualms with going along with the plans as long as she didn't have to kill anyone. But that was before Draco was born. 

Narcissa had never really been evil, but it was only after Voldemort's fall that she began to have some regrets, enough regrets to try and keep Draco out of his father's company when ever possible. She knew that she didn't want any son of hers to grow up so blatantly a "bad guy." 

Hoping that her letter to her son would help to show him the error in his father's ways, she tore her mind from the topic. She had no idea when she might see Draco again. Narcissa had no belongings of her own, as everything was owned my Lucius, and the house elves would notice the absence of any house hold belongings, so for lack of anything else to give to Draco, she had sent her old house badge, quickly cut from her oldest school robe. The house badge of Ravenclaw. 

Lucius had warned her that he would be gone the entire evening, a perfect time for her to leave. Narcissa had never left the manor before alone. She had always had someone accompanying her and it was a novel experience to be walking though the dim light with a bag of clothing and a few galleons, the shadows of the carnivorous plants throwing weird shadows onto the path. When she finally passed through the stone gates, Narcissa let out a breath she didn't know that she'd been holding, and disappeared into thin air, aparating her way to London.

With her wand out, Narcissa stepped out from the dark alley she had aparated into and headed down the deserted street. She turned the corner and the Leaky Cauldron appeared in front of her in the dim light of the street lamps. There, outside the door stood the unmistakable shape of Mundungus Fletcher. He was a tall man, and had a bulk build. Fletcher had been relatively handsome in his youth, but had seen some pretty rough things in his time as an Auror and had turned to drinking, putting on quite a bit of weight. As Narcissa drew closer, she could see that he still had some of his boyish features that she remembered vaguely from school. He had started at Hogwarts while she was in her seventh year. 

Mundungus didn't move to meet her. In fact, he didn't move at all. If she didn't know better, she would have said that he had been frozen solid. But his wand was in his hand, and she saw that as a good sign. 

Finally, she was no more than a few feet in front of him, when she saw that his eyes were shifting back and forth quickly. Suddenly they locked on hers, and Narcissa was filled with fear. She stopped moving and looked past him into the dark. The shadows had moved, she was sure of it. Narcissa let out a scream and turned to run back down the street when she saw out of the corner of her eye a flash of brilliant green light.

Mundungus felt, rather than saw, the curse shoot past him, and Narcissa crumpled to the ground, obviously dead. He then felt another spell hit his own body, and the petrifaction curse that he had been under lifted suddenly. 

At that moment, no doubt attracted by Narcissa's final scream, wizards began to file out of the Leaky Cauldron. There, they saw Mundungus Fletcher, wand out, standing over Narcissa's body.

~~~~~~~~~~~~

Draco followed the path back past the clearing, which still showed the action of the night before, through the trees, and out onto the school grounds, now clearly visible as his punishment was over. As he made his way back to the castle, he thought about what Bert had said. He would like to think that he would do the same for his own mother as Harry was trying to do for his godfather. All the same, he hoped that it would never come to that.

He walked up the front stairs and knocked on the huge doors, which swung open. To his great relief, there was no one inside. In fact, there didn't seem to be anyone anywhere. As he made his way through the deserted halls to his common room, he thought bitterly about what Professor McGonagall told him and Harry about how their safety would be monitored. 

"Can't really make sure we're safe if they're not here," Draco thought to himself. "Founders," he said out loud, and strode into the room. The three other Slytherin prefects were all there, along with two owls for Draco. He didn't really want to talk to any of the others, so after a brief greeting, he took the letters from the owls and headed up to his dorm. 

Upon seeing the author of the first letter, he was glad he had decided to retreat to the rooms. His mother's letters were usually full of endearments, which, Draco was ashamed to say, he appreciated, but he would rather not have shared with the rest of the house upon their arrival. He sat down on his bed and pulled the green and silver curtains tightly around his bed and opened the first letter. 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Harry Potter had not had a normal childhood. Growing up with the Dursleys, repressed and abused wouldn't have set anyone on the right track for a normal adult hood, and the fact that someone had tried to murder Harry at least once every one of the last four years of his life and did nothing to help this. However, Harry had proven that he was able to handle himself in situations that would have caused many others to give up in on more than one occasion, and by the time he awoke in the field outside the forest a few hours later, he was already thinking of a plan. 

"Voldemort has spies everywhere, so maybe, I just need to get something to one of his spies. Then the spy has to tell Voldemort, and Voldemort gets angry and..." Harry stopped his train of thought for a moment. Then he went to sleep? How could he be sure he'd be asleep when Voldemort got angry? He'd never had a vision while awake before. 

"It worth a try," Harry said out loud. Now all he needed to do was think of something that would make Voldemort angry enough to kill the messenger, as the saying goes. Something involving himself might work. That Harry Potter had vanished, and no one knew where he had gone... that might work. It had to be something that the rest of the world agreed with. 

"But then," Harry reasoned. "I will be gone. I can't go back to school, they'd never let me out again."

Harry reached into his bag and pulled out a book, then he ripped the black title page out and grabbed a pen. 

"_Solo Cribanis_," Harry spoke to the pen, and it instantly stood upright on the paper. He then thought for a moment, and began to speak.

"Dear Dad," Harry started. The pen began to write on its own in a surprisingly childlike style of handwriting. "Do you know where Harry is? He's supposed to be a prefect but no one has seen him at school since he got off the train, and Hermione and I can't get an owl to him. Does the Ministry know anything? It seems like he's disappeared! Love, Ron." 

"That should do it," Harry thought, picking up the pen and rolling up the paper. He then stuck all of his belongings into his backpack and set off to Hogsmeade to rent an owl and disappear. 

~~~~~~~~~~~

It had been a wasted day, in Lupin's mind. Things couldn't possibly be worse and if the Aurors had spent time focusing on what the Death Eaters were doing... well, pursuing that train of thought was useless. Mundungus was in more trouble that ever before because they hadn't noticed that he had been released. Arabella sat with her head in her hands next to him on the train seat, not looking at London disappearing behind them. Dumbledore and McGonagall sat quietly on the other side of the train car. 

There had been no word or sign of Peter. The house at Little Hangleton was more than deserted. Every sign of life had vanished, and a large and very ordinary looking "For Sale" sign had been placed in the yard. Albania was a big place, but even with Dumbledore himself combing the country, no news could be found. Arabella and Lupin's search was cut off abruptly when a team of _Daily Prophet_ reporters swooped down upon them. When they finally escaped and found a newspaper to see why the reporters were so interested in the aurors actions...

They were going back to the school. Lupin had it in his mind to keep Harry from finding out about Sirius and Narcissa Malfoy until it was to late to do anything about either. McGonagall was trying to think of a way to break the news to Draco. Arabella didn't seem to be thinking at all and one could never tell with Dumbledore. 

"Well, what do we do now?" Remus finally asked no one in particular. 

"We wait, and think and we plan something that will make this all work out," Dumbledore said sternly. 

"As much as we would all like to share your eternal optimism, Albus, those aren't your two best friends sitting there about to be executed!" Lupin shouted. He then looked ashamed and lapsed back into silence. However it wasn't until Arabella's hand reached over and found his that he felt he could really believe any of Dumbledore's words. 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Draco was surprised, but not entirely displeased with the letter he had received from his mother. True, his father would make his life miserable until Draco told him where Narcissa had gone, however from the sound of his mother's letter, that didn't really seem to matter. At least she had seemed happy about leaving. Draco almost wished that he could be with her, but that was impossible. At least he could promise the he wouldn't give her away. 

He folded up the letter and put it, as well as his mothers Ravenclaw badge, back in the envelope and turned his attention to the next letter. This one was larger and bore the Malfoy family crest on the back. 

"Dad's on top of things today, I didn't expect this so quickly," Draco thought to himself. At that moment, the dorm room door burst open and Gareth Zambini, the older brother of Blaise who was in Draco's year, came in.

"Malfoy, come on out. We've got to go to a meeting."

"Meeting?" Draco asked blankly, shoving the letters under his pillow and crawling out of the bed. 

"Yes, meeting. All the prefects in the dining room. Now," Gareth said, exasperated. "Didn't you read the announcement last night?"

"No, I didn't read it. Now shove off and I'll be down in a second," Draco spat back, annoyed that no one had noticed that he was gone.

Draco was halfway down the stairs when he remembered Harry. Who was going to be leading this meeting, anyway? Would they notice Harry's absence and question him? Draco pondered what he might say to get himself out of this one, but as he walked into the dining room, he saw that he needn't have worried. There, at the head of the table of prefects stood Argus Filtch and Severus Snape. 

"Sit," Snape commanded, and Draco realized that all of the other prefects were already there and he had been standing still in the doorway for much to long. He scowled at the students staring at him and took a seat next to Gareth at the back of the table.

Snape looked around the room as if doing a head count, but when he finished he made no comment. Then, like a whip, his voice cracked over the students seated before him.

"Rules," he spat. "You are here to uphold them. You are not above them."

Draco mentally rolled his eyes and settled down in his chair. Every so often, he would look up to see Filtch reading off a long list, but all he heard was Harry's voice saying simply, "I have to," over and over again.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Harry, having sent the letter off with an owl from the post office in Hogsmeade, was now making his was up the hill past the village to the cave where Sirius had stayed the year before. He wasn't quite sure where it was, as he had only been there once, but after casting about for a while, he came across the small opening to the cave. Lowering himself down, Harry pictured the cave the last time he had been there; littered with the bones of small animals and a dank and dreary place. 

Because of these mental pictures, Harry was quite surprised then to see a well-furnished room, complete with couches, a table and a large cabinet. Upon opening it, Harry was grateful to see that it was fully stocked with enough food to last him as long as he might wish to stay. This relieved him immensely, as he had been trying to figure out how he might summon lunch to himself without people noticing a sandwich floating though the town. 

Harry busied himself with making lunch, and then seated himself at the table. He was quite calm by this point, because he knew that his plan had to work. It couldn't not work. It would be too unfair. No one's life could be so full of loss, he decided. Fate made that impossible, in the same way that lightning never strikes the same place twice. Therefore Sirius would be ok, as long as Harry found Peter Pettigrew first. 

He didn't know how long he had sat there, staring off into space, when a loud train whistle from the station below lifted him from his stupor. It must have been late afternoon. The train made him think back to school. He wondered what everyone would do when they realized that he was gone. Rather hoping that they wouldn't put too much of the blame on Draco, as, for once, it hadn't really been his fault, Harry considered sending another owl, but that would have required going back down into Hogsmeade, and he would rather not have anyone see him. 

Harry crawled out off the cave and sat staring down at the little town, which looked like a painting in the rapidly fading light. No one in Hogsmeade noticed a small black haired boy sitting on the hillside above the town. No one, that is, except the old man with a long white beard who was getting off of the train in the station below. After a few minutes of sitting in the chilly air, Harry crawled back down into the cave and settled on the couch to await the dream he knew must come.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Minerva McGonagall led the way back to the school. It was a solemn procession; with Albus close behind her, and Remus and Arabella a few steps behind him. Albus glanced around him, particularly at the low hills behind the town, but when Remus followed his gaze, he saw nothing out of the ordinary. Across the grounds they marched up to the boar flanked doors. The great hall was empty, save a few of the ghosts, but they weren't allowed the peace for long, as no sooner had the door closed behind them, but Severus Snape stormed out of a corridor to meet them. 

"Potter is gone," he snapped, getting right to the point. "I thought perhaps he may have skipped the meeting this morning on his own volition," Professor McGonagall's lips grew thinner at this comment, "but I can safely say that the boy is neither in the castle nor on the grounds," Snape finished.

"Is Mr. Malfoy here?" McGonagall asked quickly.

"Yes," Snape answered simply. 

"Well, have you asked Malfoy what happened?" Lupin cut in. "He'd know better than anyone where Harry is, as he was the last one who saw him!"

Snape glared at Lupin. "No, I have not asked Draco where Potter is. I thought it better not to involve the students until necessary."

"But Harry was with Malfoy last!" Lupin insisted. "How do you imagine you will get any information if not from him?"

"Potter has always been one for breaking the rules and it seems to me that Draco is just the convenient excuse in this case! How do you know that Mr. Potter, upon returning to the school, as a prefect no less, didn't grow his annual hero complex and rush out to save his convict godfather?" Snape hissed. Lupin was stunned into silence, and Snape thought for a moment that perhaps, that time, he had gone too far. He instantly dismissed the thought. Arabella looked at the both of them and walked past them and up the stairs. 

"That was unnecessary, Severus," Dumbledore said sadly. Snape scowled, but looked away from the headmaster. "I know Harry is gone," he continued, and all three of the remaining adults looked up at him in shock. "And I don't believe it would do us any good to try and stop him if he has left for the same reason I believe he has left for. However, perhaps, Severus, you could send Draco to my office so I may confirm with him what I already know."

"But Albus, what are you going to tell Draco about his--" Professor McGonagall started, but Dumbledore stopped her.

"Tonight, I think it is best that Draco finds out such news from his own family. He may have already. Nothing I can say will help him with that." There was a peculiar emphasis on the word, "I".

Professor McGonagall nodded, but Lupin noticed that Professor Snape looked slightly confused. 

"I bid you good evening then," Albus finished and with that, he followed Arabella's path up the stairs. 

"I trust you two can behave yourselves?" Minerva said sternly to Lupin and Snape. Snape's eyes narrowed and Lupin looked away. Professor McGonagall rolled her eyes and left them as well. Snape also turned to leave, but Remus's voice stopped him.

"I suppose you don't know what they were talking about then, do you. About what to tell Draco?"

Snape turned to stare hard at Lupin, but didn't answer him.

"Sure, you know about Sirius, because that's big news. All over the paper; they finally caught Sirius and its ok that he's about to be executed. He might as well already be dead for all the good anyone can do for him now. But you know who else died last night? Draco's mother."

"What did you say?" Snape asked. His voice was like ice, however at that moment, it felt as if his insides had frozen to the same temperature as his tone.

"Yes, Severus, dead. And do you want to know who killed her? One of your death eaters." Snape started to turn away, but Lupin continued. "But no one knows that. Do you want to know why? Because they framed Mundungus Fletcher. He was the one holding the wand. But no one is going to believe that, are they? And now Draco's mother is dead, just to buy the loyalty of the child. So next time you try and argue that it is an arrogant crime to try and save someone you love, remember what you lose if you don't try at all."

Lupin appeared to have finished. He was about to turn and walk away, suddenly exhausted, but for some reason he looked one more time at Professor Snape's face. Snape looked back, locking eyes with him for the first time that Lupin could ever remember. Then, Snape gave a small nod, his features still as cold as ever, and turned away. Lupin, aware that this was the extent of the apology that he would get that night, started off to Dumbledore's office.

Snape, however stood quite still, his back still to where Lupin was. He then made a sudden motion and grabbed his arm. As if he had made up his mind about something he strode off, his cape billowing out behind him.


	7. More Questions and a Few Answers

****

7.

More Questions and a Few Answers

The meeting had dragged on for ages. By the time it was done, Draco was not the only student who had been lulled nearly to sleep by the dreadful repetition of numbers and their corresponding forbidden actions or objects. Draco had finally gotten Harry out of his head. For the first part of the lecture, he kept expecting Dumbledore or McGonagall to burst in and demand to know what he had done with Harry, but so far, there had been no change in the monotonous afternoon at all. 

Draco's thoughts then settled on his mother's letter to him. She had said that she didn't want him to end up like his father. Personally, Draco didn't see what was so bad about his father. He was rich, respected, feared, and had control over most of the Ministry of Magic-- what could be wrong with that. However he did see her point. At some point, the addition of countless murders on ones soul might take its toll. 

When Filtch finally rolled up his parchment, there was an audible sigh of relief, quickly followed by a groan as Snape instructed them to return at the same time the next day. Snape looked around the room again and Draco braced himself to be approached by the professor, but Snape didn't move towards him, but instead hastily left the room. 

Draco followed Gareth out of the hall and down the stairs to their common room. Once there, Draco returned to his bed and took the two letters out from under his pillow. He put his mother's aside and reached to open the letter from his father. Draco fully expected a note from his father demanding to know where his mother was, but the first four words written in his father's rigid and perfect hand-writing stopped him in his tracks. 

__

Your mother is dead.

The blood left Draco's face, leaving him a slightly greenish color. Unable to tear his eyes from the page, he finished the letter. Then he read it again. He didn't realize that he had bitten through his lip until the metallic taste of blood filled him mouth. 

A hot swoop of anger filled Draco's stomach. He couldn't have explained who his anger was directed at. At his father, who drove his mother from the house; at You-Know-Who, who started it all; at Dumbledore for luring her into a false sense of security; at her killers, the so-called protectors... but mostly he was angry at himself. 

He wouldn't waste time feeling sorry for himself. His mother's death had not been an accident, and he would do whatever he had to in order to avenge her death, even if that meant going against her last wishes.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

After he left Snape in the Great Hall, Remus headed directly for his office. He silently seethed, but by the time he had reached the top of the stairs, he started to feel ashamed. He had been so worried about Sirius and Harry, once he knew that Sirius's charge had gone, that he had taken it out as anger. 

Remus was halfway through the door to his office, by this point feeling absolutely retched, before he realized that there was already some body sitting in his chair. Arabella had been waiting for him since she had left the Great Hall, probably to tell him off for losing his temper and carrying out a verbal duel with Snape. 

"I was stupid tonight," Remus started. Arabella stood up and walked over to him and opened her mouth to say something, but Remus continued. "I shouldn't have let my emotions get the better of me. It's just this on top of everything else, and now Harry's--" but Remus didn't get any farther for at that moment, Arabella threw her arms around him and kissed him full on the mouth. 

Remus was surprised for about half a second. Then he pulled her closer to him and returned the kiss, pouring in all of his pent up emotion. So intent, he was, on not letting her break off the kiss he barely noticed her hands tearing through his hair, and he was brought back to the his school days when he would kiss her like this before the Change, as if the world was about to end, which, indeed, it was. 

All to soon for Remus, Arabella disentangled herself from him and pulled away. 

"Next time you need to let off some steam, come find me," Arabella said carefully. She let him kiss her once more, and then turned to walk out of the office.

"Bella?" Remus's voice stopped her. She looked over her shoulder and for a moment, she saw him there, with the gray in his hair and the lines on his once smooth face and she thought of all she had lost to time. "I will."

Her face broke into a smile to match his and blowing him another kiss, she left his office. 

Remus flopped down in the chair and wondered what had happened. Was he about to fall back into a relationship with Bella that he had promised himself he would never continue for fear of harming her? 

"This has been a confusing night," he said out loud, and with that, he walked past through the office into his adjoining rooms and was asleep before his head hit the pillow.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Draco didn't bother replying to his father's owl. His father knew Draco well enough to judge what his reactions would be. He had whiled away the rest of the evening, after reading the letter, completely absorbed by his own thoughts. It wasn't until he climbed the stairs to the common rooms some time later that he realized how late it was. The common room was devoid of students, all of the other prefects having retired to bed earlier. The room was not empty, however. Professor Snape sat alone in one of the high-backed chairs with an expression on his face that Draco had never seen before. Almost pity?

"The headmaster wishes to speak to you, Malfoy," Snape said coolly. Draco swore inwardly. The last thing he wanted right now was to try and convince someone that he was not responsible for Harry's disappearance. 

However he nodded to Snape and followed his teacher out of the common room and through the castle to Dumbledore's office. When he thought about it, Draco expected that under normal conditions he might have been surprised that he had never been to Dumbledore's office before-- in fact, he had no idea where it was-- but instead he just felt empty. 

Snape stopped just in front of a large stone gargoyle and muttered a password with distaste. A password, that Draco noted, sounded suspiciously like, "Canary Creams." The gargoyle jumped aside and allowed Draco to step past it onto a moving stairway that was rotating up towards a room above. Without looking back at Snape, Draco permitted himself to be carried up to a set of doors that opened into the Headmaster's study. Dumbledore himself sat reading over his desk in the middle of the room.

"Mr. Malfoy," Dumbledore started, but Draco cut him off. 

"Look, I'm really not in the mood for this, so can you make it quick?" he asked.

"I simply want to ask you a question," Dumbledore said, his eyebrows raising a little.

"Yeah, yeah, why is Potter gone," Draco said scathingly.

"Why is your mother dead?" Dumbledore asked quietly.

Draco stared at the older wizard. Dumbledore had always frightened him, ever since he was a first year and his father had told him that it was because of Dumbledore and his followers that half of the parents of the children in his house were dead or behind bars. Since then, Draco had always been subconsciously terrified that it was his parents that Dumbledore would be after next. This thought forced him to return to Dumbledore's question.

"I don't know what you mean," Draco said, in an offhand tone.

"I rather think you do, young Mr. Malfoy," Dumbledore said in the same quiet voice. 

"My mother was murdered. By the people," he spat the last word at the man in front of him. "Who she thought could protect her."

"That may be true, depending on how you look at it."

"No, its true no matter how you look at it," Draco half shouted. 

"So what are you planning on doing about it," Dumbledore asked with another eyebrow raise. 

Draco opened his mouth to tell Dumbledore exactly what he planned to do about it, but at that moment, his mother's final words to him rose up off the paper in his mind. She didn't want him to be like his father. She didn't want him to be vengefully and murderous. She didn't want him to be like all of the other Malfoys for generations had been as long as anyone could remember. Draco needed some more time to himself before he knew what he was going to do. Realizing that his mouth was still half open, Draco started talking.

"I gave him the letter that my father sent me about Sirius's trial. After he save-- I mean, there was this spider that almost ki-- I gave him the letter and he read it and took off. Through the woods. And I think that he went into Hogsmeade but I don't know where he was planning on going from there. He said that he had to help his godfather."

Dumbledore nodded as if he understood exactly what Draco had been thinking and this unnerved him slightly, but for some reason he didn't feel fear this time. 

"Thank you, Draco. You may go now if you wish. But you may want to talk to Harry when he gets back, you know," his voice was kind, but at Dumbledore last few words, Draco must have visibly grimaced because a twinkle appeared in Dumbledore's eye. Draco disliked the idea that the old man knew something that he didn't.

"Good bye, Professor," Draco said coldly. Dumbledore nodded at him again, the twinkle gone, and Draco quickly left the room.

"I guess someone had better go out after Harry," Draco hear the professor say to himself, as Draco was leaving. Silently, Draco vehemently disagreed. What ever had happened to his relatively perfect life must have somehow been caused by Potter. 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The last thing on Harry's mind at that moment was Draco. In fact, nothing was on his mind at all. He was still asleep. However the morning noises of the town below and the light that filtered in through the top of the cave was causing Harry to stir. 

His backbone was slightly disarranged under him on the couch he had slept on, and his black hair fell softly over his face, covering both his scar, and his left eye. With out his glasses on, Harry looked younger and frailer, and the tee-shirt that he had been wearing the day before was wrinkled on his shoulder and side, showing that he had tossed and turned during the night. But though he had tossed and turned, there was no sign that he had been awakened b a dream at all

This realization slowly dawned on Harry as the light crept into his eyes and he stretched, his back cracking loudly after the second night in a row of sleeping on an uneven surface. For a moment, Harry was unaware of where he was, or why he felt so hopeless. The room around him swam in and out of focus in his exhaustion, but all thought of sleep was instantly driven from his mind when he realized that the dream he had anticipated, expected even, had not come. He was no closer to finding Sirius that he had been at that time the day before. 

Harry sat up and walked calmly across the room. He stood next to the large cabinet of food that he had taken his lunch from the day before and reached up as high as he could, placing both hands on the wooden frame. Then he shoved his hands away from his body with every ounce of strength in him and sent the heavy cabinet tumbling to the floor. Cans rolled everywhere, some bursting open upon impact and the smell of canned peaches and tuna fish filled the air. Boxes tumbled down too and the powdery contents of the half open ones turned quickly into a kind of sticky paste when mixing with the liquids of the cans. The cabinet itself collapsed upon impact and sent bits off food and wood from one side of the room to the other.

Harry bit back the tears that burned at the side of his eyes. Everything had been in vain. He had run away from the school, and the people who could possibly help him, because he had been afraid that they would hinder his own search for Peter. Now, alone in Hogsmeade he had no idea what to do. Perhaps when Voldemort had taken some of his blood the year before, that had broken the connection between them. Perhaps the letter had not yet reached Voldemort and so his anger would come later. And perhaps, most disheartening off all, the letter had arrived and someone, somewhere, was laughing over the attempts of a teenaged boy to rescue his godfather.

Even though he was half blinded by his grief and rage, Harry knew that he couldn't just run out into the world hoping that he would stumble across some clue of Peter's whereabouts. Such an action could be useless at best and fatal at worst. Finally, Harry decided that he would go to Sirius's trial in London and plead his godfather's case. There was the smallest, slightest chance that someone might believe his story, simply because he was Harry Potter.

He looked again around the cave. It was beginning to smell pretty badly. There was nothing he needed here. 

Hoisting himself out of the cave, Harry headed down the hill and through the town to the Hogsmeade station. It wasn't until he got there, however, that he realized that there were two major flaws with his plan of going to Sirius's trial. First of all, he had no money for a ticket, and second of all, he had no idea where to go. Hurriedly, he fished Draco's letter out of his pocket and re-read the crumpled paper. The Ministry of Magic. That was where the trial was to be held. Harry might have guessed.

Harry had never been to the Ministry of Magic buildings. That couldn't be that difficult a thing to figure out, though. He walked up to the large board next to the ticket office, which gave the train schedule and scanned the list. 

"Great," Harry thought to himself, dully, the one small blessing of the day did little to lighten his mood. "Train leaves directly for London in 20 minutes. The Ministry has to be in London..." his thoughts trailed off. Oh well, nothing to do but ask.

"Excuse me?" Harry said into the ticket booth. A screen separated him and the person inside, so they couldn't see each other. A small slot in the wall allowed for money to be passed in and out. 

"Yes?" the voice of a young man replied. He sounded friendly enough. Harry's hopes rose. 

"I was wondering if you could tell me when the next train leaves that will take me to the Ministry of Magic offices," Harry asked.

"Twenty minutes. The London station's closest if you want to walk or take a muggle transport after you get there. Apperating's much faster, though."

"Well if I could apperate, I wouldn't be at the train station," Harry said angrily under his breath. "How much?"

"20 Sickles, round trip," the young man replied.

"Well, I don't have any money right now, but if I get to London, I can get some money out of the bank--"

"Sorry, kid, no loans. Get your dad or mum to give you some money for a day trip, ok?" 

"Please?" Harry begged, but the ticket-seller rode over him again.

"NO loans! Got it?" 

Harry was about to turn away when he thought of something. 

"Do you know who I am?" he asked, his voice a bit stronger than it was before. The ticket-seller upped his age guess for the kid trying to talk his way onto the train up a few years, but then realized he didn't care. He had better things to be doing. He was about to say so, but Harry didn't let him.

"I am Harry Potter. That's right, HARRY POTTER, the boy who lived. I need to get on that train and if you don't let me have a ticket to London, and innocent man is going to die. Will this be on your conscience? Will you be the one who stopped Harry Potter from saving an innocent life?" Harry was rather pleased with his little speech. Speaking in the third person also added to the fun of it. That was before he realized that the man in the ticket booth was laughing. A sort of thud made it sound like the man had fallen off his chair in his fits of laughter. 

"Good one kid. Better luck next time," the man said, still choking with laughter. Harry didn't bother to respond. He turned away from the ticket booth to the apparently empty benches on the platform and sat with his head in his hands. 

He was so absorbed in his own thoughts of his failure to Sirius, that he didn't notice the man behind him until the man grabbed Harry by the shoulder.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Remus awoke with the sunlight from the high window in the castle wall streaming down to his eyes. Instinctively, he glanced at the lunar calendar by his bed, his bones aching at the prospect of the change in less than two weeks. He rolled out of bed, and landed on all fours on the cold floor. 

He quickly dressed and pulled on one of his nicer robes, hoping to do whatever possible to counter the stereotypes that people held against him because of his background. He would need every ounce of hope once he reached London if he were to make any headway in saving Sirius. Until he left for London, however, Remus wanted to talk to Arabella. 

That was the plan, however, until he walked out of his bedroom and into his office. There, in front of his desk, sat Dumbledore.

"Albus," Remus started, surprised. "Why didn't you knock? I would have been quicker!"

"Don't worry, Remus, I have only been here a few minutes. I have a favor to ask of you."

Remus looked nonplused. 

"I need you to go to Harry," Dumbledore said.

"You haven't gone after him yet? Or sent Minerva or... someone? You just left him out there, all night! Where is he anyway?" Lupin shouted angrily.

"Remus, do calm down. I did not just 'leave him out there.' I promise you. He is in the cave in Hogsmeade where Sirius stayed last year."

Lupin still looked skeptical, but no longer angry.

"As I was saying, I would like you to go to him. I dare say that young Harry will be making his way to the Hogsmeade train station before the first train leaves for London. A train you will be on anyway?" Dumbledore ended with a question, and Remus nodded his head. 

"I was planning on apparating, but I can take the train if I'll be with Harry. May I take Harry to London with me?" Remus asked, as an after thought.

"I doubt you'd be able to get him to stay," Dumbledore said sagely, and then smiled. 

"Do not look so tragic, Remus. I think everything will be alright in the end. Perhaps we should find some morning nourishment. I believe that Miss. Figg is waiting for you downstairs as well."

Remus nodded again, and this time followed the headmaster out of the office and down the stairs to the great hall and into the dining room. He didn't feel much like eating, but upon seeing Bella sitting at the staff table, loading a plate with grapefruit slices and toast for him, he sat down beside her anyway. 

"Dumbledore wants me to find Harry and take him on the train to London for the trial," Remus told her, by way of greeting.

"I know," she smiled thinly. "I think I will stay here, though and apparate in just before the trial starts. "

Breakfast passed quickly, but not quickly enough for Remus, who wanted to find Harry as soon as possible. He knew that Sirius would have his head for letting Harry spend a night alone out of the protection of a trustworthy adult wizard. Every bite tasted like sand, but finally, the plate was empty, and Bella was looking at him expectantly, as if waiting for an answer. 

"Sorry, what?" Lupin asked, confused. He hadn't heard her say a word.

"I asked," she said patiently. "If you want me to come down to the station with you."

"That's ok, Bella, I think I can make it." He smiled and kissed his fingertips and touched her nose, trying to let her know that he didn't feel at all awkward about the night before. Which, in fact, he didn't. She blushed, but smiled back, and Remus stood up.

"Ok dear, I'm off. I'll see you in London."

"Sirius's best friend and his godson. What a happy party you'll be," Bella said sadly. "Let's try and believe Albus. Something will come up, and it'll be all right. You'll see." Arabella felt a bit as if she were talking to a child, but as Remus looked slightly reassured, she decided it was alright.

Albus was no where to be seen, having finished his breakfast and left before anyone else, but Remus assumed that the semi-omnipotent headmaster would know that he had left. Once out of the school gates, Remus considered apparating to the station, but the walk was less than a mile and it was a nice day. At this point, he really wasn't in a hurry, as he needed to wait for Harry once he got to the station anyway. He just hoped that Harry would be there, as Dumbledore had assumed. 

Remus reached the station quickly, and looked around for any sign of Harry. After a few moments, he decided that the boy wasn't there yet, having scanned the area near the tracks and ticket booth, and turned to the covered beaches to wait. There, sitting with hunched back and head in hands, sat a dark and forlorn figure, with crumpled clothing and jet black hair. Remus Lupin walked across the space that separated him and the boy and put his hand on Harry's shoulder.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

After delivering Draco to the Headmaster, Snape had hurried down the numerous flights of stairs to the dungeons below and his own office. By charming a number of objects, small vials of potions, a knife, and, upon second thought, a small portkey back to Hogwarts, he was able to take everything he could possibly need for his excursion in the pocket of his robe. He then hung up his robe and prepared for bed. In order to be prepared to carry out his rather risky plan, he needed to get some sleep.

The next morning dawned cloudy and cold. Severus was often annoyed that Hogwarts was impossible to apparate out of or into. It made things especially difficult when he wanted to go somewhere where he was not expected. The portkeys that were given to the staff were useful for coming back, but unless someone had a port key to get where they were going as well, they still had to walk into Hogsmeade to apparate. 

He returned to the Great Hall from the dungeons on the way out of the school. If he had had any doubts about what he was about to do, they instantly vanished when he remembered the conversation that he had held here with Remus just hours ago and the look on Draco's face when he came down from his dormitory. With one final look around, Severus stepped out onto the grounds, wondering if he was about to make the second biggest mistake of his life. 

The walk through the grounds and past the large gates that marked the boundary of the school was much to short, and Severus's all purpose look of distaste has firmly settled itself on his face. He fingered the items in his pocket, careful to avoid the portkey, and invoked the spell that would take him to the Malfoy manor. The air made a small clap as it filled the space where Severus had been standing a moment ago.

He had a split second impression of shapes and colors flying past, and then found himself standing outside of an all-to-familiar iron gate with a large 'M' soldered into it. Severus knew the routine and touched the tip of his wand to the center of the letter and then wondered why he had brought his own wand.

"Oh well," he thought to himself. "They'll find out soon enough anyway."

He waited for a few minutes, then began to get nervous. What if Lucius simply enacted one of the many defensive mechanisms of the gate and killed him then? Suddenly, the gate creaked open, and Severus walked slowly towards the Malfoy Manor. 

He reached the door and it opened before him, without his having to touch the ornately carved wood. Stepping inside, he heard a voice in front of him, and Lucius Malfoy stood at the base of the stairway, dressed immaculately in green and black with the Dark Mark winking at Severus from Lucius's arm. 

"Severus," Lucius said coldly. "Give me one good reason why I shouldn't kill you right now."

"You know why you haven't killed me yet," Severus answered with disdain. "You hope I have information for you. You hope I've come back."

"And you haven't?" Lucius asked lightly, raising his wand.

"I've come back. It's no coincidence that I chose to return after hearing of your wife's murder," Severus said in the same voice. He thought he detected a slight smirk in Lucius's features, and he thought again of Draco, but Lucius's features quickly rearranged themselves to anger.

"So you plan to take advantage me while I am weak?" Lucius wondered.

"I simply came to give my regrets and to say that perhaps I picked the murderous side after all," Severus said through clenched teeth. 

Lucius weighed the information in his mind. He seriously doubted that Severus had come back to their side, although he would have much useful information if he had. Lucius himself could not be harmed within the Manor and if Severus cast any malicious curses, the Manor itself would fire enough curses to destroy a team of auror's right back. However, even if Severus had not come back to join their side, Lucius might be able to get sufficient information out of the traitor before killing him. They not only would he have news to present to You-Know-Who, but he would be able to bring Severus's body as well. 

"Come into the living room, Severus," Lucius said, his voice was completely emotionless and Severus wondered again if he oughtn't bolt from the manor right then. Instead, his face as emotionless as Lucius's words, Severus followed.

"Sit," Lucius gestured. 

Severus sat. Lucius remained standing. For an endless time, neither man said anything. Finally, Lucius, as if content that Severus wasn't about to start cursing him, a belief supported by the fact that the former death eater didn't even seem to have his wand, sat as well and rang a small bell sitting on a table. The bell magically resounded throughout the entire house.

"Under normal circumstances, I would have my wife serve us, but in this situation, that appears to be impossible," Lucius said as if making a joke. "Instead, we will have to deal with-- ah, here he is."

Peter Pettigrew stepped into the room. Severus forced his face to remain expressionless. Pettigrew looked at Severus and gave a small squeak. 

"Lucius! What is he doing here?" Peter tried to say with disdain, completely failing to mask the fear in his voice. 

"Where did you drag this slime up?" Severus asked, remembering that he was supposed to believe, along with the rest of the world, that Peter was dead.

"Rats survive situations that would be most troubling to many other creatures; poison, drowning, arrest, even death, so it seems," Lucius replied blandly. Severus, not fool enough to fall into that trap rearranged his face into an expression of mild confinement and replied, "I have no idea what you are talking about, Lucius."

Lucius nodded slightly, as if pleased and said, "No matter, I'm sure it will all become clear once you have officially returned to our ranks. Peter, get our guest and myself something to drink."

Peter looked as if he was about to argue, but Lucius looked daggers at the pudgy man and Peter sullenly turned away. They could hear him muttering to himself halfway down the hall.

"I must find myself someone else to help around here now that Narcissa's gone," Lucius commented. The silence dragged out, and became so palpable that Snape felt he could almost see it, weaving a net that was slowly suffocating him. He slid his right foot up his left one. 

Finally, they could hear Peter shuffling along back down the hall towards them, the tell-tale sounds of china cups full of liquid giving his presence away almost as much as the continued muttering. 

Peter entered the doorway and looked up at the men in the room, taking his eyes off the plate he was carrying. Severus stared right back at him. Something in Severus's eyes made Peter falter, and in that moment, everything happened. 

Peter tilted the plate forward, the cups and tea leaning precariously towards the magnificent carpet below. Severus, under the pretense of aiding Peter rushed forward, but in a swift motion, reached down and grabbed the wand that he had hidden in the top of his left boot. Before Lucius had realized what was happening, Severus had stunned Peter and the entire plate came crashing to the floor along with the body of Peter, whose eyes were wide with fright. Lucius reached for his wand at the same time that the walls of the room started sending out an assortment of creative curses that were meant to cause as much pain as possible before killing the victim and added to the medley of spells flying though the air. Severus, realizing the number of spells flying through the air toward him somersaulted forward, an amazingly agile move for a man his age, and halfway through the roll, grabbed his wand in his mouth, reached out one hand to hold the collar of Peter's robes, and with the other find the portkey in his pocket. 

Merely seconds after Peter Pettigrew had entered the room, the curses collided with a explosion of fireworks right where Severus was standing. But by that time, Severus, and Pettigrew were gone.


End file.
